Status Updates From Encuentros con Jesús: Respu...

Ch10: How should we respond? Look to Mary's example at the annunciation:
Mary was a nobody who became greater than everybody, simply because God came to her and she responded in the humblest possible way. She reasoned (used logic), she doubted (with honest questions not statements), she surrendered (out of belief & to all the unknowns of what it'd cost her), she connected with others (which led her to worship).

As soon as you say, "I will obey you if" that is not obedience.

...my salvation works like this- suffering leads to glory and death to resurrection. So have no fear. Receive Jesus Christ into your life, and I will be your honor. It doesn't matter what the world thinks.

I'm afraid many people want to negotiate the cost rather than count it. That is, they are willing to give up things, but they won't give up the right to determine what those things are.

Ch9Q: How is Jesus our Savior? What was the ascension?
Ans.Summ.: The ascension was Jesus, always king but taking a new throne as head of and for the Church, able to communicate to and guide and commune with His people everywhere, ruling over everything together for the good of His people, and guaranteeing the forgiveness, acceptance, and delight of God to His people.

The man who died for you, who still has the nail prints in his hands--the signs of his suffering for you—is in control of everything at the right hand of the Father. Can you relax?
Are you anxious? Are you feeling you can't keep everything going; you've got to keep all these balls up in the air? Then you don't believe in the ascension or you're not using it as a re-
source.

The ultimate case of this principle is the fate of Jesus himself, in his rejection, betrayal, torture, and death. When the forces of darkness unleashed themselves on him to destroy him, they only succeeded in vanquishing themselves (Colossians 2:15).

(On Romans 8:28) No, he is saying that from the vantage point of eternity, looking back on all of history, it will be clear that even the genuinely bad things that happened were incorporated and used by God—so that in the end they only accomplished the opposite of what they intended.