Josh Ross - Bringing Heaven to Earth: You Dont Have to Wait for Eternity to Live the Good News

Oh, the difficulty of balance in this walk of faith. We tend to lose it. At least I do. I find myself on the side of the path, entangled in small issues and controversies. This book calls us to keep our eyes up. To keep the big things the big things. The authors offer a much needed and much welcomed reminder.

M AX L UCADO , pastor and author

For many Christians, heaven is just some place we fly away to. But Ross and Storment clear the clouds to reveal the ways in which heaven matters in the here and now. Earth is full of heaven, they say, but you have to know where to look and how to participate in it. Finally, a concept of heaven worth believing in!

J ONATHAN M ERRITT , author of Jesus Is Better than You Imagined and senior columnist for Religion News Service

Christians need to get past all views of the future that do not impact the present. That is how Jonathan and Josh help us; they call us to a view of then that matters now. Bringing Heaven to Earth is a timely challenge to a church in need of a new way of telling time.

R ICK A TCHLEY , senior minister at The Hills Church of Christ, Fort Worth, Texas

Its about time someone dismantled the view that Christianity and the church exist to be Gods waiting room until we make it to heaven. Jonathan and Josh dismantle the fairy tale of heaven being a place of naked, winged babies playing harps on clouds. They replace that with the vision that Jesus and the New Testament both expect heaven to burst forth out of the church.

T IM H ARLOW , senior pastor of Parkview Christian Church, Chicago

In Bringing Heaven to Earth, Storment and Ross show us that how we think of heaven truly matters only when we are able to see how it impacts the way we live, day in and day out. This book doesnt disappoint.

C OLT M C C OY , NFL quarterback and coauthor of The Real Win and Growing Up Colt

For believers and nonbelievers alike, the idea of heaven often seems sentimental, escapist, and irrelevant. But in this powerful and inspiring book, Jonathan Storment and Josh Ross make heaven and earth collide. The good news is that heaven is a party already in full swing. So pull up a chair to the banquet table and be sure to bring a friend.

R ICHARD B ECK , blogger, author, and professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University

There is good news for those who feel they are done with church: God is not done with us! Josh Ross and Jonathan Storment marvelously describe a world to end all worldsthe world that is on its way. And they show how we are to live in the meantime. This book will revive your hope and electrify your imagination.

I AN M ORGAN C RON , best-selling author of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrims Tale

Bringing Heaven to Earth is proof that the Bible is extremely relevant in the past and present, and especially in our future. Reading this book will challenge you to look for opportunities to show Gods love to everyone you encounter.

B OB S MILEY , Christian comedian

This cultural crash between heaven and earth is so needed in a world that has been stuck between two extremes of trying to explain heaven away or making an escape to heaven through hopes of an early rapture. This life we live is just a rehearsal for the consummation of heaven uniting with earth one day. When we put works with our faith, we are giving our neighbors a taste of glory divine.

S TACY S PENCER , senior pastor at New Direction Christian Church, Memphis, Tennessee

We live in a world that faces innumerable challenges, and the authors remind us that faith in Jesus gives us the power to be his holistic witnesses to the restoration and reconciliation work found only in Christ. You will be inspired and equipped by reading this book.

D ANIEL H ILL , author of 10:10: Life to the Fullest and senior pastor of River City Community Church, Chicago

Jonathan and Josh will widen your view of heaven and the scope of Gods mission on earth. This book will make your heart beat faster and your soul grow bigger for the things God cares about most.

G ENE A PPEL , coauthor of How to Change Your Church (without Killing It)

B RINGING H EAVEN TO E ARTH

P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS

12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Scripture quotations marked ( MSG ) are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Italics in Scripture quotations reflect the authors added emphasis.

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Trade Paperback ISBN9781601426703

eBook ISBN9781601426710

Copyright 2015 by Josh Ross and Jonathan Storment

Cover design by Mark D. Ford; cover photo by Tilby Vattard, plainpicture

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Storment, Jonathan.

Bringing heaven to earth : you dont have to wait for eternity to live the good news / Jonathan Storment and Josh Ross.First Edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60142-670-3ISBN 978-1-60142-671-0 (electronic) 1. HeavenChristianity. 2. Christian life. 3. Mission of the church. I. Title.

BT846.3.S76 2015

248.4dc23

2014049363

v4.1

a

T here will be a first hour in heaven. Mind you, I dont know how long it will last and when it will happen. It might happen the moment we die, or the moment of the resurrection, or the first hour in heaven. But it will happen.

What will happen in that first hour in heaven? All things will be made right. Thats precisely what heaven is.

All things means all things. Our relationship to God, to self, and to all othersparents, spouses, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, and community membersand to the world and cultures around us. Nations will be right with other nations. Im looking at Americans who hate Arabs, at Protestant and evangelical Christians who raise their eyebrows about the Russian Orthodox or Italian Roman Catholics. All will be made right with one another.

The hour all things are made right is the hour we are reconciled, and for that to happen two other things have to happen in the first hour: we have to own up to what we have done with utter and eternal truthfulness, and we have to embrace the other with utter and eternal forgiveness. Yes, that too. All will be made right.