Jesus does not ask us to make a commitment to him, but to surrender to him as Lord. This is one of the basic decisions we must make to follow Christ. You can say it this way, Jesus, you will be total Lord of the total me for my total life.

God doesn’t want bits and pieces of us. He wants all of us. He wants us to be fully surrendered to him. He wants every part of us for every moment of our life. Paul uses the language of sacrifice to express this truth, encouraging us in the strongest terms to offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. This is a basic decision of the Christian life. We make it once and for all and then live by it.

This is the first message in a series called Basic Decisions of the Christian Life. These are decisions that every Christian must make in order to be obedient to Christ and to live the way God wants them to live. Failure to make or live by these simple decisions explains a lot of disappointing conduct and personal disillusionment among Christians.

This message starts with the most important of these decisions: who or what is going to have the top priority in our life?

The second decision about the Christian life focuses on the practice of our life as believers. It is simple: the decision we need to make is that life will no longer be about me. Explaining why this is decision is needed and then what it actually means in practice are the two main goals of this message.

God has a purpose for living that includes every believer. To pursue that purpose we need to make another basic decision. It is this: I will live to glorify God. What that means, how it applies, and why it is an important decision are the covered in this message.