Jesus Is Better than You Imagined

Contributors

By Jonathan Merritt

Foreword by John Ortberg

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  1. Hardcover $20.00 $22.00 CAD
  2. ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD

Is the God who created us better than the God we’ve created?

After following Jesus for nearly two decades, Jonathan Merritt decides to confront the emptiness of a faith that has become dry, predictable, and rote. In a moment of desperation, he cries out for God to show up and surprise him, and over the next year, God doesn’t disappoint.

In Jesus is Better Than You Imagined, Jonathan shares vulnerable, never-before-shared stories of how he learned to encounter Jesus in unexpected ways. Through a 60-hour vow of silence in a desert monastery, he experiences Jesus in silence. When a friend dies of a rare disease, he sees Jesus in tragedy. Through confronting childhood sexual abuse, Jonathan discovers Jesus in honesty. In an anti-Christian-themed bar, he finds Jesus in sacrilege. And when he’s almost kidnapped in Haiti by armed bandits, he experiences Jesus in the impossible.

Though Merritt finds himself in places he never dreamed of, he doesn’t lose his way. Instead, these experiences force him back to the Bible, where he repeatedly offers fresh, sometimes provocative, interpretations of familiar passages. Along the way, he throws back the covers on the sleepy faith of many Christians, urging them to search for the Holy in their midst.

Pointed and poignant by turns, Jonathan helps readers open their hearts to a mysterious God and a faith that sustains, guides, and most importantly, surprises. His fearlessly honest story invites us all to discover the messy mercy and crazy grace of a sometimes startling Savior.

On Sale
Apr 1, 2014
Page Count
208 pages
Publisher
FaithWords
ISBN-13
9781455527878

Jonathan Merritt

About the Author

Jonathan Merritt is an award-winning writer on politics, spirituality, and culture. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, a contributing editor for The Week, and has published hundreds of columns in prominent national outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, and The Daily Beast. Jonathan has also served as a ghostwriter on more than 40 books, many of which became New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and WSJ bestsellers. Jonathan is a proud biological Guncle to five little ones in Georgia and a proud adoptive Guncle to ten nephews and nieces in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, where he resides.

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