Reshaped by God

Nothing quite upsets the  Christian like the realization that she is not her own.  The mental assent of it is comfortable and in ways pleasing but the working out of it is discombobulating.  As soon as you give Christ your life it is His and He may not work it out the way you want it.  Like a ball of clay in the hands of a master, you will be reshaped until the Lord is satisfied; not until you are fine with how things are.  Esau was "hated" by God not because he was such a foul person but because he never had God in mind as he went about his business.  He lived for his own today and not any further.  Jacob in his complicated passion, wanted all God had and more.  Jacob could work for Esau if he might have the birthright and lose his father's affection if he could get the blessing. In the perversity of his scheming, always Jacob had at the front the vastness of God and the Lord blessed Him in his madness.  Before we see something in God and Jacob that was never there; it must be reminded that Jacob was clay and the reshaping of him took a lifetime.  While Abraham had the faith to give at God's command his son Isaac freely, the Lord stripped Jacob without warning of each delight he treasured.  First it was his mother, then his sweetheart Rachel and finally his beloved son Joseph.  At each point Jacob could do nothing to take back the lamb on the altar.  His hands were tied and he was left to wait out the terrible reworking of his heart until God was finished with him on it.  Jacob was not his own and this became dreadfully clear to him with each lamb God took from his grip.  You can wallow in self pity over the shape God is pounding into you or you can be satisfied with the mercy God has to not leave you as an Esau "hated" but reworked like Jacob "loved".

...so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.   Jeremiah 18:4 NIV

Personhood

An individual has no accountability to anyone.  He does as he pleases when he wants.  The person has merged with the personhood of God and lives within the personality of God.  There is no other way to know God than to live within Him; for His nature to come into your nature and transform yours.  Otherwise you merely know about God as rumors and individualized ideas.  We are more likely to fight for our individualization than give way to the transformation of Christ in us.  Sarah could never have gone with Abraham up the mountain to take her son Isaac onto the altar.  She had not yet shown any sign that God's will was becoming hers.  She was happy to receive His gift but not so prepared to take His nature.  We sigh at the prospect of being transformed by the Spirit of God not because we don't like the idea of it but because we dread the actuality of it.  In real life as you stand before the stove and while you pull out your notes to study or as you meet with your supervisor, the Spirit of God will rise up and make His will certain to you and it is then that you decide for your individuality or your personality.  There is no room for God in your individuality but all the space you need in your personality.  Knowing God comes the moment you bend your will into God's and give Him full sway over your circumstance at the moment.  Something will need to be placed on the altar...a desire, a grudge, a discontentment, an achievement, a visionary attainment...but it must be given up on the spot or you will stumble off on your own and gain nothing but the delusion of self-hood.  Hell is not the cadre of the like-minded; it is the stuffing together of individuals who can never be together at any level any longer.  Both Abraham and Isaac found at the same moment their union with God.  Just imagine the love that swept over them as they made their way back home together.  An individual, caught up in what he will and will not do can never know this wild and consumptive love; he is left only to talk about it. 
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  Philippians 3:8 NIV