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This is parallel to Romans 2:1-11 where there is a fuller expansion of the same thought. There I find a more detailed description of both of these options and the results of each. It is also more clear there that it is us who passes judgment on ourselves and God simply affirms our decision impartially.
This also clarifies what it is that belief is invested in – the kindness, tolerance and patience of God that leads us to repentance, which is simply changing our minds about God and what He is like. Unbelief, which is refusing to believe that God treats us this way, causes stubbornness and a hard, unrepentant heart which in turn stores up wrath inside of it that will be exposed fully in the day when God's passionate love reveals our wrath. In that day God will be found to be completely innocent and righteous, not because He forces everyone to accept His version of truth but because all the lies will be exposed for what they are by the revelation of God's kindness, tolerance and patience. Every being in the universe in complete freedom and exposed to all the evidence will realize that everything God has said and done has been fair, truthful and always done with kindness, tolerance and patience. Our punishment will not be carried out by a God who finally loses His patience and tortures us for rejecting Him, it will be the natural result of the sin inside of us still resisting His love and we become totally inflamed and consumed by our resistance
If we continue in God's kindness we will remain connected to God's tree of Life for us. The results will be glory and honor and peace. If we continue in unbelief that God is kind and tolerant and patient we become increasingly judgmental, selfish, self-ambitious, disobedient except to unrighteousness and filled with wrath and indignation. And on top of that we project our own feelings and emotions onto God insisting that it is He who is full of wrath and indignation. In reality we create in our minds the God that in the end consumes us. Having this mindset cuts us off from the trunk which is the only source of real life for us.
There is no partiality with God. We are free to choose to discontinue our unbelief in the goodness of God and have faith in His kindness so that we can be led to repentance. It says here that if we do not continue in unbelief that God is able to graft us in again. It is not God's fault or choice that determines our destiny and fate but it is our determined choice, what we continue in, as to which way we will perceive God. The options are clear and the consequences are dramatic and opposite for eternity.
God, open my heart to see Your kindness more clearly and willingly. Fill my imagination with the real truths about You that lure my heart into Your affectionate presence. Ravish my heart with Your love and grace and expose the lies about You still triggering my fears. Continue Your healing of my mind and help me to continue in Your kindness for Your reputation's sake.
