Have You Tried Everything Else? Try Getting To Know Jesus and Let Go of Idols (Pt.5) (350) - May 16 2026

Sometimes people can unknowingly be serving other gods and idols. How? By not taking the time to really know who Jesus is, and by continuing to serve a fake Jesus created in their own minds — shaped by popular opinions and false ideas about Him.

What do I mean by this? When our own desires become louder than Jesus — louder than truly knowing Him and obeying what the Lord says — that desire has become an idol.

Some people’s idea of Jesus is that He exists to do magic for them. That is what they are looking for. They live in a world where they go to people for magic in their lives, so when they come to Jesus, they expect the same thing. They don’t realize that magic is an evil thing. They hold on to the idea that everyone — including God — works like the idol they have created in their mind.

Some people want Jesus to strike down the people they don’t like. Yes, I know that sounds eye-opening, but it’s true. They are used to removing people they don’t like in their own lives, and they expect Jesus to operate the same way.

Some people only want the power of Jesus and not Him.
2 Timothy 3:5 — “For although they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].”

Some want Jesus to be nothing more than a bank machine who stays silent. They are used to getting only what they want and nothing more. Some people don’t want to hear correction, truth, holiness, or righteousness — they just want the blessings of Jesus.

God wants you to realize that some requests you make of Him are contrary to His will. He cannot do evil. In Him there is no darkness at all, so to ask Him to do evil is not who He is or what He does.

1 John 1:5 — “And this is the message [the message of promise] which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [no, not in any way].”

Commentary: It is important to begin to know who God truly is so we can pray, live, and understand effectively as we grow.

Matthew 7:22-23 — “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and driven out demons in Your name and done many mighty works in Your name?’ And then I will say to them openly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].’”

You can see that it’s not about getting what we want — knowing Jesus is what truly matters.

Key Points:

• Creating a version of Jesus vs. who He really is 
• Vain imagination 
• Renew your mind in order to know the Lord 
• Finding Jesus

This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): 2 Timothy 3:5, 1 John 1:5, Matthew 7:22, Acts 10:38, Matthew:16:13–16, John 6:68-69, John 1:1-3, 2 Corinthians 10:3-6, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Isaiah 55:3, Isaiah 55:6-9, Romans 12:2, James 1:21, James 4:7-10, James 1:22-24, John 14:6-9, John 1:1-3, Jeremiah 29:11-13, Philippians 4:6.        

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And welcome back to yet another episode of Touch of God. My name is Catrice, and I'll be delivering the message for you this week. For those of you who would like to follow along with us in the Bible, we do read from the Amplified Classic Version. This week, we'll be talking about Have You Tried Everything Else? Try Getting to Know Jesus and Let Go of Idols. Last week, we talked about Have You Tried Everything Else? Now Try Jesus, Idol Worship, Continued, and that was part four. We discussed the following, sometimes we are lost and it's not because of the idols. Make sure you are not a part of deliberately defying or running away from Jesus. Why an idol has no power unless we give it power? We open the doors ourselves to sin and evil. God's warning in Exodus 20 verse 3 says, you shall have no other gods before or besides me. We decide to do the action of coming into agreement with idols and worshiping them. We decide to make bad choices. We decide to be around evil, people, things, to get what we think they will give us. It is people who carry out the sin of agreeing to things and to do things with the idols. For example, some people have decided to go to witch doctors and let evil into their lives. Some people are doing witchcraft. It's people who have abused children. Then they cry out for the Lord to help them after killing, stealing, and destroying. Yes, idols are a part of things, but you have to agree to do sin, to go into debt, to have sex outside of marriage, to steal someone's things, not pay your bills, spend the money, not study for school exams. These are only some of the examples. The topics from last week were, we can be our own worst enemy, know the devices of the enemy, of worshiping idols, continued idol worship from your life. This week on, have you tried everything else? Try getting to know Jesus and let go of idols. This week we'll be discussing the following topics. Sometimes people can unknowingly serve or be serving other gods and idols. How? By not getting to really know who Jesus is and by continuing to serve the fake Jesus in their mind and from popular opinions, popular false ideas of Jesus. What do I mean by this? When what we want is louder than Jesus, knowing Jesus doing what the Lord says, it's an idol. Some people's idea of Jesus is for him to do magic. That is what they are looking for. They live in a world where they go to people to do magic in their life. When they come to Jesus, they expect the same thing because they don't know magic is an evil thing. They hold on to the idea that everyone works like the idol in their mind. Some people want Jesus to strike down people they don't like. Yes, I know it's eye opening, right? But it's true. They are used to doing the same thing in their life to remove people they don't like. They expect Jesus to operate the same way. Some people only want the power of Jesus and not him. Let's look at 2 Timothy 3-5. For although they hold a form of piety, true religion, they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it. Their conduct bellies and genuineness of their profession avoid all such people turn away from them. Some want Jesus to only be a bank machine and to shut up. They are used to getting only what they want and that's it. Some people don't want to hear correction, truth, holiness, righteousness. They just want the blessing from Jesus. God wants you to realize that some requests you make of him are contrary to his will, meaning he cannot do evil. In him, there is no darkness. To ask him to do evil is not who he is or what he does. Let's look at 1 John 1-5. And this is the message, the message of promise, which we have heard from him and now are reporting to you. God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. No, not in any way. It's important to begin to know who God is so we can pray, live, and understand effectively to grow. Let's look at Matthew 7-22. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and driven out demons in your name and done many works in your name? And then I will say to them openly, this is the Lord speaking and publicly, I never knew you depart from me. You who act wickedly disregarding my commands. You can see that it's not about getting what you want, but knowing Jesus is very important and following his commands. Let's look at the topics for this week. Creating a version of Jesus versus who he is. Vain imagination. Renew your mind in order to know the Lord. Finding Jesus. Let's start with creating a version of Jesus versus who he is. Please note there is nothing bad about people needing money, which is what we had mentioned earlier. When money is even above Jesus, it's an addiction to money and power above God. That's when it's an idol. We must not focus on what we want, but do what Jesus did. This is how we become disciples by doing what he did. And this is how we can follow his commands, like he said in the previous verse in Matthew 7-22. In Acts 10-38, it says how God anointed and consecrated Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with strength and ability and power. How he went about doing good and in particular, curing all who were harassed and oppressed by the power of the devil for God was with him. In life, we imagine how we want things instead of how things really are. For example, in relationships, we fall in love with the potential of our imagination. What does this mean? It means we place how we want a person or a place or a thing to be rather than what the person, place, or thing really is like. For example, a girl wants a boyfriend so bad that she finds anyone to date and then tells everyone he is working a really important job. He is rich and buys her whatever she wants. She goes and tells everyone this lie. When she is alone with the boy, she tries to make him find a good job and buy her things. The boy is frustrated because he is doing the best he can do. The girl continues to carry on forcing him to meet the standards of the lie she has told everyone. This behavior ruins the relationship with the boy because he cannot live up to the standards of the lie she told. This keeps a person in a false reality and expectation. When we think about that example of what the girl was doing, it keeps that person or anyone doing that in a false reality and expectation of things that will not happen because they are not based on reality. When we think about the things in our mind and the things that we want versus what actually is, we are wanting things that are not based on reality. But when you follow Jesus and you are following the word of God, that is reality and that is the difference. The Lord wants our lives to be based on a truth he established for us because only living according to his truth as the one who created you can set you free from the things you are fighting in this world. Let's look at Matthew 16, 13 to 16. Now when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is? And they answered, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you yourselves say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Then Jesus answered him, blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood men have not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. Peter only knew the answer because he was seeking who God really is and not what he wanted from God or something he wanted God to do for him. He simply was seeking to know Jesus because he understood that Jesus holds truth. Let's look at John 6, verse 68 to 69. Simon Peter answered the Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words, the message of eternal life. And we have learned to believe, trust, and more. We have come to know surely that you are the holy one of God, the Christ, the anointed one, the son of the living God. Amen. Since we know who God is, let's try to go a little bit deeper into understanding why we have these vain imaginations or what the vain imaginations are. We're imagining God is versus who God actually is. Imagination is not Jesus. It is what you created in your mind. Jesus is the very word of God and his son. How do we know this? Let's look at John 1, verses 1 to 3. In the beginning, before all time was the word Christ and the word was with God and the word was God himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through him. And without him was not even one thing made that has come into being. We understand that the Lord is the word, which is Jesus. And all things came into being through Jesus, but nothing came into being or nothing was made without coming through him. Right? So in this world, if we want things to happen, we have to go through Jesus, who is the word. If your thoughts are looking at talking to something that you made, you have made your God, it might not be Jesus, but the counterfeit Jesus you made. Counterfeit Jesus comes when we are believing more in what we want instead of the reality of what Jesus and God says in the Bible. For example, if every time we think of Jesus, it is only to seek money, your business, passing school grades, your wants and your needs, and you have no relationship with him. You seek a false God. You are seeking the money. You are seeking business improvement. You are seeking only to pass your test. Therefore, money is your God. Those things are your God. If this is the case, you will want to remove this false representation of Jesus and replace it with the real Jesus. We must get rid of the vain imagination and think about how we need to do this. How do we go about doing that? In 2 Corinthians 10 5, let's look at that. For though we walk, live in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. So even though we're walking with that vain imagination, we're not using mere human weapons against this vain imagination. Let's continue with 2 Corinthians 10 verse 4. The weapons of our warfare are not physical weapons of flesh and blood, but they are mighty before God for the end of this verse is going to tell you how to pull down this vain imagination to overthrow and destruction of strongholds in as much as we refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself against the true knowledge of God. And we lead every thought and purpose away, captive in the obedience of Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, being in readiness to punish every insubordinate for his disobedience when our own submission and obedience as a church are fully secured and complete. Let's look at another tool we can use to understand who the real Jesus is. Renew your mind in order to know the Lord. In order to find Jesus and how Jesus works, you must get rid of how you think, things you do, how you live. As long as you are speaking, thinking, and doing, living the same way, you're not changing. When you get a hold of these ways, thoughts of the Lord, change comes because you actually changed from your way of thinking to the way Jesus thinks, lives, and speaks and does things. Let's look at 2 Timothy 3 verses 1 to 5. But understand this, that in the last days will come set in perilous times of great stress and trouble, hard to deal with and hard to bear. For people will be lovers of self and utterly self-centered, lovers of money, and aroused by an inordinate greedy desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive, blasphemous, scoffing, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, and profane. They will be without natural human affection, callous and inhuman, relentless, admitting of no truce or appeasement. They will be slanderers, false accusers, troublemakers, intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. They will be treacherous betrayers, rash and inflated with self-conceit. They will be lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements, more than and rather than lovers of God. For although they hold a form of piety, true religion, they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it. Their conduct belies and the genuineness of their profession. Avoid all such people. Turn away from them. God is letting you know that if in your mind and in your conduct and in your life, you act this way and that's all that you are pursuing. God wants us to turn away from such people who act this way. This is why we have to change. How do we change in order to know what God's true will is? Let's look at Isaiah 55, 3. This is the Lord speaking. Incline your ears, submit and consent to the divine will and come to me here and your soul will revive. And I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you. Even the sure mercy, kindness, goodwill and compassion promised to David. David was a person in the Bible that God made these promises to. Let's look at Isaiah 55, 6-9. Seek, inquire for and require the Lord while he may be found. Claiming him by necessity and by right. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have love, pity and mercy for him and to our God for he will multiply to him his abundant pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Amen. Renew your mind to God's ways. Let's look at Romans 12, verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external superficial customs, but be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind by its new ideas and its new attitude so that you may prove for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in his sight for you. Let's look at the steps you need to take for change to begin. Renewing your mind is definitely one of those steps. Let go of your own way of doing things, speaking, living, thinking. Let's look at James 1, 21. So get rid of all uncleanliness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness and in a humble, gentle, modest spirit, receive and welcome the word which implanted and rooted in your hearts contains the power to save your souls. Submit to Jesus and make him Lord of your life, the boss of everything, committing all your ways unto the Lord in everything you do through prayer. Let's look at James 4, 7 to 10. Be subject to God, resist the devil, stand firm against him and he will flee from you. Come close to God and he will come close to you. Recognize that you are sinners. Get your soiled hands clean. Realize that you have been disloyal, wavering individuals with divided interest and purify your hearts of your spiritual adultery. As you draw near to God, be deeply penitent and grieve, even weep over your disloyalty. Let your laughter be turned to grief and your mirth be dejection and heartfelt shame for your sins. Humble yourselves, feeling very insignificant in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you. He will lift you up and make your lives significant. We talked about renewing your mind with how God thinks, meaning learn God's ways by reading the Bible. Begin to do what the Bible says. Be sayers and doers of the word. Let's look at James 1 verses 22 to 24. But be doers of the word, obey the message and not merely listeners to it. Betraying yourselves into deception by reasoning contrary to the truth. For if anyone only listens to the word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his own natural face in a mirror for he thoughtfully observes himself and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like. Let's think about that and while we're thinking about that, let's focus on finding God and Jesus. Let's look at John 14 verses six to nine. This is Jesus talking to the disciples. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you had known me and learn to recognize me, you would also have known my father. From now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, cause us to see the father. That is all we ask. Then we shall be satisfied. Jesus replied, have I been with all of you for so long a time? And do you not recognize and know me yet? Philip, anyone who has seen me has seen the father. How can you say then show us the father? So Jesus is trying to understand why even some of his disciples don't recognize him. But remember, let's go back to John one verses one to three. In the beginning, before all time was the word Christ and the word was with God. So Jesus was with God because Jesus is Christ. He was with God and the word was with God and the word was God himself. God is literally telling you that him and the father are one in this Bible verse. We see here that the very word is God. Knowing God is knowing the things in the Bible, not through others, but through picking up your Bible and reading it for yourself. If you seek me, you will find me. It says this in Jeremiah 29 verses 11 to 13. For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil to give you hope in your final outcome. Then you will call upon me and you will come and pray to me and I will hear and heed you. Then you will seek me, inquire for and require me as a vital necessity and find me when you search for me with all your heart. How do we find God? According to this verse, you have to be looking for God in order to find him. You're not looking for things, money, opportunity, but the Lord himself. Jeremiah 29 says, then you will call upon me the Lord. If you are calling upon something else, another God, your friends, statues, other idols, you're not calling upon the Lord. You are calling on those idols. Seek God who is Jesus. Talk to the Lord, not to get things, but as the God who is the answer to everything. Let him know what you need, but let him supply it. Then give your needs to him, not greed or evil ways and thoughts, but through simple conversation in a quiet place. Philippians 4, 6, do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything by prayer and petition, definite request with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. Let's look at Jeremiah 29, 12 continued says, you will come and pray to me. The Lord wants you to come and pray to him. When we follow after the real Jesus, there is no need to follow idols, worshiping other gods. Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life. Every other God is an idol. He is the one true living God. He is the alpha and omega, the first and the last. Where else can you go when he has the very words of life? In Jeremiah 29, 13, it says, then you will seek me, inquire for and require me as a vital necessity. So God wants you to seek after actually him, not your own thoughts. He wants you to pray when you're seeking him. And when you're praying, you're seeking him as a vital necessity. We need to learn to seek God as a vital necessity. When he is the author and the finisher of our faith, we need to understand that. We need to observe that. And when we see God as those things, then we learn to have fear of God and to come to him in prayer. Amen. Amen.