"A Time To Die"

"Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath." (Psalms 58:9) Just so you know, I saw that there were two types of people being described in that last verse: those that do not see that their life has been changed, and those that don't think that they need to change any more; both of which refuse to come to the understanding that God is Love. We have got to see our need for God, if we are ever going to really hunger and thirst for righteousness, then we have got to see our need for God's love. Psalms 73 begins Book 3 of the Psalms, and I look forward to getting there one day, Lord willing; but it has the title above it in my Bible, "The Fate of the Wicked"; something I find rather interesting, seeing that the title above this Psalm is, "Punish the Wicked!" No matter what you might think, God is in control, and He does not change; and just in case you do not know what that might imply, it takes all of our excuses for not seeing our need for Him, and it crushes them to powder, and they are blown away; just like that, they are nothing, no how! The old Hammer tune just popped into my head, "Can't touch this!", because we can't even begin to imagine being close to where God is in loving us, because His love is that amazing! Would you die for someone that you love? How about for a friend? Maybe? But would you be willing to die for someone that hates you? Not only just die, but be brutally beaten and tormented to death, for those that despise and spit upon you? And somehow we don't think that we need to be changed? Jesus did not just die for our sins, He was punished for our sins; He was punished for the wicked! Wow, do you see how powerful that is? and do you understand why any excuse that you have does not stand a chance? If you have not already done so, you need to die right away! Paul puts it as this: "Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of His wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined Him in His death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised to life as He was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. When He died, He died once to break the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ." (Romans 6:1-11) NLT