From the author of the bestselling novel The Shack and the New York Times bestsellers Cross Roads and Eve comes a compelling, conversational exploration of twenty-eight assumptions about God—assumptions that just might be keeping us from experiencing His unconditional, all-encompassing love. In his wildly popular novels, Wm. Paul Young portrayed the Triune God in ways that challenged our thinking—sometimes upending long-held beliefs, but always centered in the eternal, all-encompassing nature of God’s love. Now, in Wm. Paul Young’s first nonfiction book, he invites us to revisit our assumptions about God—this time using the Bible, theological discussion, and personal anecdotes. Paul encourages us to think through beliefs we’ve presumed to be true and consider whether some might actually be false. Expounding on the compassion fans felt from the “Papa” portrayed in The Shack—now a major film starring Sam Worthington and Octavia Spencer—Paul encourages you to think anew about important issues including sin, religion, hell, politics, identity, creation, human rights, and helping us discover God’s deep and abiding love.

Combines professional insights along with the author's own experience and insights to speculate on how believers can make sense of their Christian faith when confronted with tragedy and suffering.

Do your life a favor. Stand in front of a mirror, take a long, hard look at whom you see, and ask the question that is the title of this book. "Who The Hell Do I Think I Am?" Does your answer make you want to conceal yourself, or urge you to hang your head in humility? Are you on that long, congested road of self-loathing? If so, what is your plan? How impassioned are you about profoundly enhancing and advancing your life? What Are You Willing To Do To Change Your Answer? This concise, plainspoken, straightforward, matter-of-fact, right-in-your-face, first-person evaluation, is designed to fortify the successful person within. If it somewhere in you - whether just below the surface, or deep down to the marrow - to be unreservedly honest with yourself about who you truly are, then you just may discover a necessary change after reading this composition.

In this book, the author addresses a number of key (but widely neglected) topics: The Return of Christ to this Earth; the Punishment of Hell; The Reward of heaven. Ministers, preachers and believers throughout the world will find this a profoundly challenging and informative study of what the Bible actually teaches on these vital matters, and many will discover some surprising truths.

Everlasting hell and divine judgment, a lake of fire and brimstone--these mainstays of evangelical tradition have come under fire once again in recent decades. Would the God of love revealed by Jesus really consign the vast majority of humankind to a destiny of eternal, conscious torment? Is divine mercy bound by the demands of justice? How can anyone presume to know who is saved from the flames and who is not? Reacting to presumptions in like manner, others write off the fiery images of final judgment altogether. If there is a God who loves us, then surely all are welcome into the heavenly kingdom, regardless of their beliefs or behaviors in this life. Yet, given the sheer volume of threat rhetoric in the Scriptures and the wickedness manifest in human history, the pop-universalism of our day sounds more like denial than hope. Mercy triumphs over judgment; it does not skirt it. Her Gates Will Never Be Shut endeavors to reconsider what the Bible and the Church have actually said about hell and hope, noting a breadth of real possibilities that undermines every presumption. The polyphony of perspectives on hell and hope offered by the prophets, apostles, and Jesus humble our obsessive need to harmonize every text into a neat theological system. But they open the door to the eternal hope found in Revelation 21-22: the City whose gates will never be shut; where the Spirit and Bride perpetually invite the thirsty who are outside the city to "Come, drink of the waters of life."