HAS JESUS MADE A DIFFERENCE?

As I have wandered around in David's seventy Psalms this year I have often tried to visualize him as he sat writing the words of most of them. He surely was an emotional person who never seemed to hesitate to say whatever he felt. This one is among his most striking to me - "THE FOOL SAYS IN HIS HEART, 'THERE IS NO GOD'. THEY ARE CORRUPT AND THEIR WAYS ARE VILE; THERE IS NO ONE WHO DOES GOOD." Psalm 53:1 NIV One of the reasons I am struck by this Psalm is that David, for some reason, repeated it verbatim at Psalm 14. Although David repeats certain words and phrases in many of his songs, this is the only one, as far as I can tell, that is repeated in its entirety.
Maybe 1000+ years later, at Romans 3 Paul strings together five quotes from David and Isaiah to make the same statement about his own generation. He was discussing the fact of sin among both the Gentile and Jewish communities and concluded there is no real difference between them and quotes David's words from Psalm 53 to make his point.
David and Paul were both obviously very disappointed in the people they lived among. So was God!
I don't think what David wrote is true of my generation because I know many more people than I could ever count who do a lot of good for the glory of God and in the name of Jesus. Without question there are many who ignore God, many who do little or no good with their lives and many who live in an impenetrable fog, and their number may be growing. But, that has always been true because satan rules the world with his maze of lies and trickery.
I choose to praise God for the many others who are eager to know God's will and allow His Spirit to be their daily Counselor. If they were not in my life, I am sure I would have the same pessimistic attitude that David sang about. Maybe his song was true of his generation, but I am very thankful to live in a time when and where Jesus has made a huge difference. HALLELUJAH!

"THERE IS NO GOD!" REALLY!?

I have found it curiously interesting that Psalms 53 and 14 are virtually verbatim. As I have studied the seventy plus Psalms that David authored I have seen many of his characteristic phrases repeated, but as far as I have seen so far, these two are the only instance where he reproduced the same song. Maybe he felt the worshipers didn't get the message the first time and was compelled to make the point again. Or, possibly something was happening at the time that he felt a strong motivation to call attention to the message of this song. He makes his point at the beginning, "The fool says in his heart 'There is no God'". Psalm 53:1 ESV
Being a careful student of Jewish history, the Apostle Paul quotes this Psalm at Romans 3:10, stitching it together with about seven others to make the same point to his own generation, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." All of that seems to be the result of an assumption that 'There is no God', so there are no rules, life is to be lived as you wish!
I wonder if this is how God sees his human family, ignorant, obstinate, self serving and totally oblivious to who He is. David's original assessment covers a lot of ground all the way down to Paul and the church at Rome, and even to the present day. When we compare the Biblical record with the archeological record, humans seem to have always worshiped some kind of god of their own making. Yahweh warned his own people repeatedly that creating their own gods or worshiping the gods created by other nations would only lead to their destruction. They failed to listen and now the nation of Israel still fights for its survival in the midst of constant war with one neighbor or another.
Have we really learned nothing in all the centuries between David and Paul? The brother did not mince his words when he quoted David's strong assessment of the human family that ignores God. It's still true, only "the fool says in his heart, there is no God!" But Paul uses David's words to make an even stronger point.
He follows up the Psalms quotes with an affirmation that "the law" was incapable of producing justification even for the Jews who believed in it. In spite of the rules God had given them to live by, the huge truth remained that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", both Jew and Gentile.
Now get this, regardless of the law and its requirements, all are now "justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Romans 3:24
THAT is how God sees the human family, at least that is His intent for all of us, but the choice is still up to me. I can go on living like a fool, or I can move into God's house, be adopted into His forever family and have a life that every breathing member of the human race should want more than their next breath.
David also wrote: "Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life!" Psalm 54:4 HALLELUJAH!