Thoughts of Peace and Our Expected End

• And when you see it, it’s just u it really describes description. [snorts] Um 17 ft tall, weighs I think they said like 8 12 tons, which would be about 17,000 lb. And um took Michelangelo several years to create this statue and it’s in such detail and it’s in it’s just perfection. And uh when he started they just gave him a huge piece of marble just a nothing definitive nothing.
• And uh when Michael looked at that, he in his mind he could see what he wanted. But from what he could what what he could see in his imagination to the reality of what it became, there was a process in between. And I want to talk to you about that process. This is out of um the book of Jeremiah. Very familiar portion of scripture.
• We’ve heard it preached on. We’ve quoted it. And we [snorts] lay hold on to it as believers. And this is what the Lord was saying in this verse. This is Jeremiah 29:1. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts. But I’m going to stop there for a moment. I I love that I know the thoughts that I think towards you.
• You know what that means? God’s thinking about you. You are on his mind. There’s no such thing as out of, you know, out of out of mind. Out of sight or out of sight, out of mind. God is constantly thinking of you as an individual. The 8 billion people on the earth, you are on the mind of God. And he said, ‘When I think about you, says the Lord, the thoughts that I have of you are thoughts of peace and they’re not of evil.
• And he said, “Cuz I’m going to give you an expected end.” [clears throat] In other words, the Lord said, “When when I look at you, my thoughts to you about you, they’re just good. I take no pleasure in your pain. And I think a lot of times u believers get deceived into thinking, well, God somehow must take joy in my my problems and my tribulations.
• That’s not what the Lord said. He said, I I think of you. My thoughts are peace. He said, but I see an expected end for you. And so there is this process that God takes us through. And uh I think the reason the Lord gave us this verse was that when you and I would go through difficult times, uh we would not think that we’re going through this because God is angry with us or God is upset with us.
• You know, the devil will boy, he’ll he’ll try to really get a hold of your mentality and make you feel like that. Well, I’m going through this time in my life that is very painful, very difficult, and sometimes it’s very hard to marry the reality of where you are in your life, the circumstances, the difficulties that you’re in with the word of the Lord that has been given to us in the Bible.