"The holy life of Jesus that has been designed for you in My presence and bought for you at Calvary is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the self-serving, the materialistic, or the controlling. If you truly want to live out the life that has been planned for you, it will cost you everything. It cost Jesus everything to win it for you; now it's your turn.

        "I want all of you. I will take all of you, if you will respond to Me with all of your heart. Submit to My Word. Submit to My ways. Submit to My heart. Submit to My hand of training. I will reproduce the character of Christ in you, so that I can touch others through you.

        "You must come to Me completely willing to do My will, whatever the cost to you, just as Jesus did. I will then take who you are and who you are not and eliminate them, replacing them with who you are designed to be. The death of your old ways will bring forth His ways, which are My ways, by the power of My Holy Spirit."

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV

26) "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

27) And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

John 1:10-14 NIV

10) He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

11) He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

12) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -

13) children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

14) The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 3:30 AMP

He must increase, but I must decrease. [He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.]

John 6:57 AMP

Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV

...because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The pursuit of Jesus usually begins for our good and pleasure. He meets our needs, brings us to salvation, and makes us feel good every time we go to Him. That's good for us. There comes a time, however, that we understand the Father's plan more clearly.

He shows us that this relationship is not only about us and our needs. He brings us to an increasing level of maturity. As we begin to understand His character better, we understand and move with His heart more often. As this action, response, action, response relationship continues, we gain more of His heart, and love more and more as He loves. We also begin to identify with His heart so closely that it becomes our heart.

The closer we get, we actually fall in love with His ways and move from admiration of Him to a love for Him. Getting to know Him and His ways leads to increasing love for Him, because we are changed more and more from being in His presence. Once we know Him, we act in a way that pleases Him because of the love for Him that has been placed in our hearts.

Destroy everything that is of me, Lord,

Jim Corbett