Michael, Thanks for your viewpoint. I believe God’s love does not suspend the principle of reaping and sowing. So I agree that God being just (and thus loving righteousness) means times often quickly come when his desire to restore us to a righteous path means his judgment lets us experience the painful consequences of our perverse choices (Romans calls this regularly turning us over to his wrath).
My only qualm is whether your statement that “God’s ‘patience’ will be over” is asserting more than this divine pursuit of righteousness. Since patience is treated Biblically as an fruit of love, your words can sound like you believe a time is coming when God’s nature as love will no longer love or pursue love’s goals for those made in his image. Do you have particular texts that specify that God’s “patience” or “love” as what will come to an end. My own hope is that Scripture will prove to be correct that “God’s steadfast love will endure forever,” and that since 1 John says love is essential to God’s nature, that His love will always remain, and prove to be as good as ours is to be in 1 Corinthians 13, the type of love that “always protects… always perseveres… and never fails,” in demonstrating that “love is patient,” and will never “pass away.”
I can’t imagine that God loves me, but that his love for the lost is contingent on their response and performance. So my concern is that if we envision God’s own love as running out of patience toward his enemies, we will be more tempted to justify seeing our desire for our enemies to receive a ‘justice’ that is not truly defined as bringing them as well as us into a righteous position, but is actually our carnal desire for them to receive a vengeance that is only about pay back, and has nothing to do with love.