What’s Blocking My Blessings? (Pt.2) (314) - September 6 2025

1 John chapter 5, verse 21 (AMPC) says "Little children, keep yourselves from idols (false gods)—[from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God, from any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life]. Amen (so let it be)." 

If we are wondering what is keeping us from blessings, know that we need to love what God loves and remove what replaces Him in our lives. IDOLS, things you're addicted to, and cannot stop worshipping, are what is keeping you from moving forward in Christ.

This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): 1 Corinthians 10:14, 1 John 5:21, Jonah 2:8-9, Psalms: 16:4-5, Galatians 2:19-20, Exodus 20:2-4, John 4:23-24, Ephesians 4:11-12, Colossians 3:1-10, Hebrews:1:1-2.

Pastor Catrice teaches on this topic this week.

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And welcome back to another episode of Touch of God. My name is Catrice and I'll be presenting the message to you this week. This week we are talking about what's blocking my blessing. Last week we talked about what's blocking my blessing and it was part one. We discovered that understanding God's blessings are different from what we think is blessed and the world thinks is blessed. And this week we are continuing with a series of what's blocking my blessing and this will be part two. We will be talking about any idols in our lives and how they can block our blessings. For those of you who want to follow along with the Bible, we are reading from the Amplified Classic Version. This week we'll be discussing everything about idols. So what are idols and idolatry? Who is our God that we serve as believers? How do we serve and worship our God? What does worship mean? Staying focused on the things which draw us closer to Jesus Christ. How can idols block our blessings? So as usual, I'm going to start with the definitions of what we're discussing. So what are idols and what is idolatry? The definition of idolatry, the worship of a physical object as a God, immoderate attachment or devotion to something, examples of idolatry in a sentence, fans of the team are well known for their idolatry of the quarterback. So this is just talking about worshiping an individual versus a thing. A synonym, which is a word that means the same as idolatry or idol worship is hero worship as into a door to love or admire too much. People who hero worship celebrities are setting themselves up for disappointment. So let's go ahead and understand idolatry through the eyes of God and how God set up idolatry in the Bible and what God thinks about idolatry. We're going to go ahead to first Corinthians 10 verse 14. It says, therefore, my dearly beloved shun, keep clear away from avoid by fight if need be, any sort of idolatry of loving or venerating anything more than God. So if you have things in your life, it could be a stuffed animal, and if you're loving it more than God, then that can turn into idol worship. Let's take a look at first John five verse 21. Little children, keep yourselves from idols, false gods, from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God from any sort of substitute for him that would take first place in your life. So God doesn't want anything to take his place, right? If you've made Jesus your Lord and Savior, you don't want to be replacing God with other gods if you're supposed to be saved. Let's look at Jonah two verse eight. Those who pay regard to false, useless and worthless idols forsake their own source of mercy and loving kindness. So that's literally referring back to the last verse that we read, that when you bring an idol into your life, you're forsaking God himself. And God's the one who will show you mercy and loving kindness. Jesus Christ, right? Let's continue on to Jonah two verse nine. But as for me, I will sacrifice to you, the Lord, the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have owed. Salvation and deliverance belong to the Lord. And let's also take a look at Psalms 16 verses four to five. Their sorrows shall be multiplied, whose to choose another God. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer or take their names upon my lips. The Lord is my chosen and assigned portion, my cup. You hold and maintain my lot. So this is David speaking in Psalms, and he's saying that he will not be giving blood offerings to other God. He's not going to basically have any part of that. So the reason why we read these scriptures is so you can get an idea of how God feels about idols, idolatry, and idol worship. I'm going to review in this next part for who is our God that we serve. Obviously, some people already understand that we're serving Jesus Christ as believers, as Christians, but there are people who are new and they may not understand the God that we serve. So knowing the difference between our God, Jesus Christ, and whom we are actually serving is important. There are so many churches serving who their God is. As believers, when we become saved, Jesus becomes Lord over our lives. This is the decision that we have made when praying for Jesus to save us. So this means when you come to the Lord, you've been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and you had to make a choice at some point to become saved, to believe in Jesus Christ, to believe that he died for your sins. All right, so let's take a look at Galatians 2, verse 19 to 20. Through the law, under the operation of the curse of the law, have in Christ's death for me myself died to the law, and all the law demands of me, so that I may henceforth live to and for God. So this verse is saying that when we become saved, we're dying to ourselves, and from that point on, we are living to and for God. Let's look at Galatians 2, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ in him. I have shared his crucifixion. It is no longer I who live, but Christ, the Messiah, lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in adherence to and reliance on the complete trust in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. So this is letting us know that once we become saved, we are relying on, we're trusting in, and we're living for Jesus Christ, the son of God. So in Galatians 19 to 20, this is what we are to be doing to be focusing on living for God, right? Not any idols or anything else, because once you have decided to become a Christian, to serve Jesus Christ, this is whom you're worshiping. You are worshiping Jesus Christ, right? You are now living in Christ, okay? Once you become saved. So let's go ahead to Exodus 20, verse 2 to 3. I am the Lord your God who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. So in this verse right here, when it's just talking about bondage, this means that when we become saved, the Lord has delivered you from bondage, right? He's delivered you from your life of sin, and that's what's being called bondage. So let's continue on to Exodus 20, verse 3. You shall have no other gods before or beside me. So this means in regards to wanting to worship idols or statues or other people or anything that you're wanting to worship other than God, God is saying in this verse, Exodus 20, verse 3, you shall have no other gods before or beside me. So this is what God is telling you. Let's go ahead to verse 4. You shall not make yourself any graven image to worship it or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. So God is being very exact about honoring him, worshiping him as your God, and he's explicitly told you you're not to worship any graven image. So that's for us to sort out. If we see that we have a graven image in our lives, it's for us to judge ourselves if we're wanting to honor the Lord. So how do we honor the Lord? How do we worship God? Let's look at John 4, 23 to 24. A time will come, however, indeed it is already here when the true genuine worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, reality, for the father is seeking just such people as these as his worshipers. So the father is referring to God and we're being told that he wants us to worship him in spirit and in truth. Let's go on to John 4, verse 24. God is a spirit, a spiritual being, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So what does it mean to worship? Let's look at the definition of what it means to worship. To honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power. To regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion. Extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem. Worship of the dollar, right? So that's an example of somebody worshiping something. To revere, reverence, worship, adore. Mean to honor and admire profoundly and respectfully. Revere stresses deference and tenderness of feeling a professor revered by her students. Reverence presupposes an intrinsic merit and inviolability in the one honored and a similar depth of feeling in the one honoring. Reverence the Academy's code of honor, right? So they're honoring the Academy's code of honor. And then under that, we also have worship, which implies homage, usually expressed in words or ceremony. And then lastly, adore implies love and stresses the notion of an individual personal attachment. So we're getting an understanding of what idols are, idolatry, who we're as believers are supposed to serve and to worship. We just define what worship is. So we're beginning to understand the different things and defining what it is that we're speaking about this week, which is idols. So now that we know what idols are and that they can be worshiped, what are some idols in your life that you've been worshiping? Let's take time to pause and to think about the idols in our lives. Did you know that idols can hold a place in your heart that is where Jesus is supposed to be? Here's a list of possible idols that we might have not known that they're idols in our lives. Remember an idol for an idolater can be a thing or a person. So it can be famous people. It can be food. It can be caffeine. It can be sex. It can be painkillers. It can be a boyfriend. It can be a girlfriend. It can be drugs, music, social media, sports, money, clothes, hair, makeup, right? So now, now that we have an understanding of just some examples of what can be an idol, let's look at some behaviors that are attached to idols and that are worship and have become in a way addicting and out of control or out of balance. This means you feel as if you can't live without them. You are depressed without them. Sometimes people can become violent if they don't get to worship this thing or to be around this thing. Sometimes arguments can start just because they haven't worshiped that person or thing. Sometimes people get this way if they don't get their coffee in the morning. It's just a completely different story. A person can become manipulative just to try to get to that idol. Basically it's an addiction because it's a repeated behavior that they're unable to stop and they're worshiping this thing. It's taking the place of everything, right? So an example of this is money. A person under the influence of idol worshiping for them in this situation, let's say they believe they have a friend and they want money from that friend, right? Each week they make up lies and the lies become more and more and continuous, forming an addiction, something other than worshiping God, right? So they have formed this addiction to trying to get money from people and they don't realize they have an attachment to it. And when they are forming their lives around this thing, it is replacing the things that God would be doing for them and with them and they can't think about anything else, right? So some more examples of behavior that has gotten out of control from idolatry. A person can give all their money to an idol. They can stop noticing that they are not taking care of themselves. They start making excuses and lying about needing to see this person or this thing. Their personality becomes like night and day. They are up one moment happy, then they are down the next moment. They stop caring about other things. They no longer are looking for Jesus, have been given over to the desires of their flesh. So these are all just small indications that something is out of balance in their lives and they have replaced God with this idol. So like always, I always have a story. So it is story time. Yes. There was a person who was constantly going to church. They had become saved early and was determined to see the blessings the Lord had for them. They were going to church on Sunday, then they decided to go to church on Sunday and Wednesday. Then that was not enough for them, so they started going to prayer groups. After that, it was conferences after conference. Truly, they did not see the kinds of blessing that they were wanting, right? So this is why they were going to all of these things. In their heart, they were searching for success, finances, a good job, marriage, a house. These are the things that they thought if they went to church, they would get these things because that's what was in their heart. They were chasing dreams, at least the worldly dreams, the ideal of these dreams through the world and what the world was telling them that they could have. They started off by searching for the Lord to get access to this dream that was in their heart. They thought because they went to church, the pastor would get them saved, teach them, tell them all they needed to know. It became easier in their mind to approach a person rather than to approach God. They were constantly waiting for more, more words of knowledge, more prophetic concerts or conferences, hoping to be called out, hoping to hear a word saying breakthrough was coming. They became addicted to the process of having a person to worship and go to. It was easier in their minds to not have to wait on the Lord and to search the scripture for answers. They justified their behavior and called it a shortcut to God. So we can see the beginning pattern of this individual becoming addicted to the process of going to church, being around pastors, and there's nothing wrong with that when it's imbalanced, right? We have to remember that everything has to be in balance and everything that's a good thing is not a God thing. Let's continue with the story. They were waiting for a pastor to have a word for them specifically. Whatever was said to them, they would do it. It started to take a toll on them. If they heard a word, they were happy. If they didn't hear a word, it set the mood until they heard another word from a prophet or someone. They became desperate and searching for a word, a word of knowledge, something that would make them feel good. They even gave extra in the offering, hoping that their giving to the church would buy them a future. They did not know that they could not buy their way into heaven because they were not reading the Bible at this point. They literally depended on the pastor or prophets words as truth in their lives. Now we're supposed to be listening to Jesus Christ, right? The Lord has pastor and pastors and prophets in our lives to guide us and to raise us up and train us. But we are always supposed to be focused on Jesus Christ. So back to the story. They were not looking to Jesus, but to a man. They did not know the purpose of giving tithes to the church. No matter how much the pastor taught on tithe and offering in their heart, they were paying for their blessing and not giving or tithing to the kingdom of God. It got to the point that they were at this one service where the pastor said, don't bring any small coins up here to the altar. If you are taking a vacation, then I should be taking a vacation. The pastor continued to say, if you want new clothes, then I should be dressed in new clothes too. He then said, if you want the Lord to move big in your life, then you must give big in this offering. Then an altar call was made at that service to pass the collection basket around. Then the pastor said, the next offering is a special offering. If you really want the Lord to move in your life, give half your paycheck. Yes, it's a big offering, but if you want the Lord to show up big, you got to move big. You got to give big. So that day they didn't care how they would pay their rent, how they would eat, how they would get to work. They gave an offering, which was half their paycheck. They never were blessed the way they wanted and became bitter with God. You know, the truth is it wasn't God who did these things to them. It was a man that they idolized. Their anger towards God was not justified. They worship man. When God says, you shall worship the Lord, you're God. So God's instructed them to worship the Lord, your God. They never formed a relationship with the Lord. They did not even know the Lord or wanted to get to know him because they made the pastor and the prophets their God to worship. They originally wanted to go towards God, but then they got off course. They got distracted. They got confused and they enjoyed trying to force a blessing by doing certain things that they in their mind decided was going to work and they didn't actually have a relationship with God. They showed up at church, did things at church, and they were not in relationship with Jesus Christ. So why am I telling you this story? Right. I'm telling you this story because some of you have been in this exact same place. What am I saying? I'm saying that some of us have been chasing pastors, chasing prophets. I was chasing all of these things. So I know that there's people out there who are also doing it right. They're chasing worldly dreams. You're chasing words of knowledge. You're chasing the next big thing. You're chasing a concert, worshiping famous people, worshiping music, video games, money, babies, husbands, power, beautiful women, handsome men. If you get these things or you don't get these things, it determines your happiness, life existence. This is wrong and it interferes with the actual blessings the Lord has for you. As long as you are chasing a false God, you can never behold the one true living God, Jesus Christ. We should be chasing Jesus. Not what Jesus can do for us, but a relationship with Jesus. Right. At that time in the person's life, they thought they were chasing the Lord. The problem was that on their way to finding Jesus, it became easier in their mind to just ask the pastor only. Right. But this is a problem. Right. This is a problem when we turn man into our version of who we think God needs to be so that we can have our own idea of who we want God to be. And then in our minds, we justify it. And then we end up getting angry with the Lord when God never told you to create another God for you to go to. Right. We're only supposed to worship the Lord, our God, and no other God besides him. Let's take a look at Ephesians 4, verse 11 to 12. So we're looking at the pastors. We're looking at the prophets and God has them there. They don't take the place of God. So I just want to explain what pastors and prophets do. So in Ephesians 4, verse 11 to 12, and his gifts were varied. This is talking about God's gifts. He himself appointed and gave men to us, some to be apostles, special messengers, some prophets, inspired preachers and expounders, some evangelists, preachers of the gospel, traveling missionaries, some pastors, shepherds of his flock and teachers, his intention, which is God's intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints. That's us. Right. That's God's people who are believing in him, who are following him, his consecrated people, that they should do the work of the ministering toward building up Christ's body, the church. So we are to only be worshiping God. We are only to be being taught by the pastors, by the preachers, by the apostles, by the evangelists, by the teachers, so that we can be trained up so that we ourselves can help do the work of the ministry and build up the body, which is the church. So somewhere along the line, the lines have gotten blurred, right? And God wants to remind us that we have to stay focused on the things of God and to draw near to Jesus Christ. So in the midst of searching for Jesus, we must be sure to stay focused. Let's look at Colossians 3, verses 1 to 10. If then you have been raised with Christ to a new life, thus sharing his resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the rich eternal treasures that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. So we want to make sure that we are reaching for Christ and we're going through the process and knowing that only he is our God. All right, let's take a look at how can idols or idolatry block our blessings. Let's go to Colossians 3, verses 6 to 10. It is on account of these very sins that the holy anger of God is ever coming upon the sons of disobedience, those who are obstinately opposed to the divine will, among whom you also once walked when you were living in and addicted to such practices, but now put away and rid yourselves completely of all of these things, anger, rage, bad feelings toward others, curses and slander and foul mouth abuse and shameful utterances from your lips. Do not lie to one another for you have stripped off the old unregenerative self with its evil practices. Verse 10, and have clothed yourselves with the new spiritual self, which is ever in the process of being renewed and remolded into fuller and more perfect knowledge upon knowledge after the image, the likeness of him who created it. So this is why idol worship is not good because God does not like idol worshiping. And he says that this behavior belongs to the sons of disobedience, and we don't want to be sons of disobedience. So we need to focus on who we need to be listening to and who we need to be worshiping, right? So in these end times, we're supposed to be listening to Jesus Christ. And if you go to Hebrews one verses one to two, this is what it says. In many separate revelations, each of which is set forth a portion of the truth and in different ways, God spoke of old to our forefathers in and by the prophets, but in the last of these days, he has spoken to us in the person of a son, whom he appointed heir and lawful owner of all things also by and through whom he created the worlds and reaches of space and the ages of time he made, produced, built, operated and arranged them in order. Amen. So if you were worshiping idols, if you were performing idolatry and you would like to become a child of God, you can turn to God now, you can repent of your sins, turn away from your idols, and you can choose to serve only the Lord your God. Amen. God bless you all. And I'll see you next time.