Putting the World to Rights part I

"Well it really doesn't matter. I am going to heaven and God will destroy the earth one day anyway." These words uttered by my waitress last week at Texas Roadhouse (A religious experience in and of itself) sent shivers down my spine. I have heard these words or something very similar to them, for many years. In fact, I have probably made statements very close to that before and I have certainly lived with that mindset before. What's wrong with this picture?

Does God love this world or only the souls that get to go to heaven? Was that the reason for Jesus so that we could go to heaven? I dare say that it is only a small fragment of a much larger picture that is embodied when Scriptures use the word Gospel. In the modern-era we have minimalized the definition of the Gospel to the afterlife. It is not that the Gospel does not have anything to do with the afterlife; however it is only a small part of an even larger story. By definition, the Gospel is the, "Good news". I am sorry but I don't find it, "Good news" to think of a God who is sitting in heaven waiting to destroy the earth and get His people out as quickly as possible. If God was only concerned about Jesus being the divine ladder for his church and "To hell with the earth" why does Christ pray for God's will to be accomplished on earth? If we could ask St. James what the Gospel is, I wonder if he would reply, "It is the desire of God to get people to heaven." Or if James would say something that encompasses a much larger picture of the church as God’s agents of change being called to fix and heal a broken world.