The Christian is not his own man or woman. The Christian cannot say to those in her or his life, “Leave me alone; I just want to live my life as I please.”
The French Reformer John Calvin well expressed the sum of the Christian life in the following prayer, when he prayed this:
“Grant, almighty God, since you have won us by the precious blood of your Son, that we may not be our own masters but devoted to you in steadfast obedience, so that we may set our minds on consecrating ourselves entirely to you and so to offer body and soul in sacrifice that we are prepared to encounter a hundred deaths rather than defect from the true and sincere worship of your Godhead…”
[Daniel I (Chapters 1-6), trans. T. H. L. Parker [Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 20; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co./Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1993], 252].