Do You Have a Relationship With Jesus? (358) - July 11 2026

Speaker Pastor Catrice and her testimonial and experience of getting to know God, again and again. How you see God can affect how you see God. Never give up your pursuit of getting to know God and forming and deepening your relationship with Him. Once you have breakthrough you will never go back.
 
This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): 2 Corinthians 3:15-16; Exodus 33:11-12; John 15:15; 1 John 4:1-3.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And a good day to you. This is Catrice with Touch of God and today I'm bringing you a message that talks about relationship with God versus just existing with God. So many times we want to be in relationship but until we get a true definition of what relationship is or step out of our bubble to go into a different person's bubble just to see what a relationship could be like, we are trapped in our own bubble and we don't get to see new perspectives. So sometimes you can talk to someone and let's say if you're at work and you ask them, hey, do you know Bob? And you'll say, yeah, oh yeah, me and Bob, we go way back. And they'll be like, wow, that seems like an awesome guy. And then I could say, oh, he really is. And they'll be like, wow, you guys seem really close. And you're like, yeah, I've worked with him for five years, really awesome guy. And I'll be like, wow, man, I always see him over there and he's always got like something in his cup. I mean, what does he drink every day? You know what? I've never asked him. Oh, okay. Well, he's always eating like really cool food. What does he eat for lunch? I've never hung out with him for lunch. Oh, hey, you know what? I was trying to get over in his department. What department does he work in? You know what? I really don't know. Do you know his job title? I kind of don't know that either. And so then they would say, well, you said that you knew Bob for five years. You really don't know Bob, but you said you and Bob go way back. You made it like you had such a deep relationship with him. And so as you can see, just from that example, we can say that we know someone, but what is our definition of knowing someone? Do we know someone the way we would hope to know them and is knowing them a relationship or have we just existed with them in a space? And so this is what I wanted to talk about today. So before I became a believer, I used to date this guy that I was just dating. I called dating by default, meaning we spent so much time together studying for our classes that I kind of started to just say, why not? We read together, we studied together, we talked together, we had lunch, we had dinner, but I really wasn't in love. Before I knew it, years passed by just existing. I still was not in love or even like sad. Yeah, I know. One day I was around my sister and her boyfriend and we were at a clothing store. My sister and her boyfriend split up into different parts of the store looking for clothes. Her boyfriend came over to me to show me an outfit he picked out for her and he said, she would look so good in this outfit and I know that she would like it. For me, the day ended right there. Physically, it went on, but mentally, I was on pause. I was thinking about my sister's boyfriend and what he said. He said, she would look so good in this and I know that she would like it. I didn't know that a boyfriend was supposed to even know what we liked. My sister had been with her boyfriend for maybe about a year. I had been with my boyfriend for what it seemed like a decade. My boyfriend couldn't pick out nail polish for me. He couldn't pick out food, a movie, nothing. I thought, how can this be? How many of us have been in a relationship like that? How many of us are in a relationship with the Lord just like that and we couldn't tell you what he liked or what characteristics, what his would do and what he would not do? For many years, I had existed with the Bible and with the Lord. I read the Bible over and over, but was on autopilot, distracted, frustrated, searching for a connection of sorts just to try to understand the Bible, but it almost felt like I was existing with the word, but I hadn't grown. I heard so many people talking about relationships and how they were just having such a wonderful time with the Lord and to be honest with you, I was reading the Bible, but I would fall asleep sometimes and I know that that's really embarrassing, but I also know I can't be the only person who would fall asleep and I know that that's horrendous to say, but that's my truth and I'm speaking this truth because I know that I'm not the only one who is dealing with this. So one day, I was invited by a friend to their church. I was praying that this place would be different from where I had gone. The pastor began to give us his sermon, but this time it was so different for me. He was talking and he began to talk about his problem and I thought, what do you mean? And then he went to explain. He began to talk about his problems with God and again, I thought to myself, what did he mean talking to God about his problems? Surely this must be a metaphor, meaning a person not really saying what happened, but saying what something was like, but not really telling us what exactly happened. So I was thinking at that time, it was a metaphor. I went up front to the pastor after service and I just began to question him about this because I was really intrigued and I really wanted to know what he was talking about. He said, no, I actually talked to God. I seriously was in shock. What does he mean he talks to God? I thought about this idea of talking to God all the way home. When I got home, I went into the closet and I shut the door. I took a deep breath and said out loud, God, if you are real, then talk to me like a three-year-old so I don't miss a thing. If you're not real, then I'm just crazy and I'm talking to myself in this closet. Now I was in this closet because I was desperate. I had heard the many things that people were talking about and I had no idea or I didn't have understanding of what they were saying and I wanted to know more because this pastor was saying this. So I was like, I am desperate. I'm going to go into this closet. I'm going to ask God and I'm going to see what happens. So the next day I woke up and I was thinking about the topic, the certain topic. And my friend calls me that morning and happens to start talking about the same topic I was just thinking about. What are the odds? Then I listened to the radio in the car and they started talking about the same topic while I was driving. I looked over and I saw this truck with a sign on it. The wording on the truck was about the same topic and using the same phrase words that I had been thinking about all morning, the same phrases that I was using when I was talking to my friend, the same phrases that happened to pop up on the radio. And now I look outside my car window and it's on the side of this truck written in bold letters. I started freaking out. I was like, Lord, I think I hear you or see you talking to me. Oh my gosh. I was so excited. Someone in traffic was looking at me, probably wondering who was I talking to? And you know what? I didn't even care. God was talking to me and that's all that mattered. So that was my first experience with just pursuing God in that intimate way because I wanted an intimate relationship. I wasn't satisfied with just existing. And I know that there's so many people out there who just you're not satisfied with just existing with the Bible. You want to have this deeper relationship. You want to walk with the Lord in the cool of the day. And I don't blame you because it's a seriously beautiful thing. So after that, I went home and I looked at the Bible differently. I realized it was a two-way relationship. I could ask God questions and actually get answers about things I have long to know about from him. I continued to ask, to seek, and to just find things in the Bible to talk to God about. I talked about everything. I desired to know him. So let's just pause right there. I think a key component to having a relationship with the Lord is even if you feel like you're not having breakthrough, even if you're falling asleep, even if you're distracted, we have to purpose to seek his face. We have to purpose to continue. And that was one thing that I did. I continued to seek the Lord to work out everything that was not happening because I was determined because I wanted to have a relationship with the Lord. And I had seen so many other people's change and I thought I wanted to be changed as well. So I wanted the Lord to become real to me and not just words in the Bible. So then I began this back and forth conversation with the Lord, talking to the Lord and expecting in my heart that he would answer me. But after I had submitted my questions, I would literally wait expectantly for him to answer. Just like that first time when I had talked to the Lord in the closet, asking him to talk to me like a three-year-old so I don't miss anything. And literally, he started talking to me. The only thing that I can say is we have to look for the Lord and we have to allow the Lord to speak to us the way he wants to speak to us. Don't put God in a box. Don't expect God to do letter writing in the sky because you want him to do letter writing in the sky. For me, I did not control how he communicated with me. I simply just allowed the Lord to communicate with me how he wanted to. I was waiting in expectancy. I was waiting in faith. I was waiting in anticipation. So how many of you are longing to have a relationship with the Lord and not just existing with God? God made a way for you to speak with him face to face. In 2 Corinthians 3 verse 15 to 16, but whenever a person turns in repentance to the Lord, the veil is stripped off and taken away. God removed the obstacle that was standing in the way so that he can meet with you face to face. In Exodus 33 verses 11 to 12, and the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. Moses returned to the camp, but his minister, Joshua, son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the temporary prayer tent. Moses said to the Lord, see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send me with. Yet you said, I know you by name and you have also found favor in my sight. God said that he's talking to Moses face to face. But you see, when I started to talk to the Lord at times, I almost was just asking about scripture, but then the relationship, I started to see him a certain way. And I would talk to him just about things in life, not necessarily just about scripture, but things that affected me. And so you see here in this scripture, Moses is talking to God, not like religiously, and he's not like, oh ye great Lord of the universe. He's just talking to him regularly and he's asking him questions and he's trying to figure out something with the Lord. And when we see this in the Bible, then we know through Moses that it's possible to just simply talk to the Lord. You don't have to extravagant words. God wants to hear your heart. And so we see this with Moses and God tells him, I know you by name and you have also found favor in my sight. So God wants to know you by name. So that's something that we can anticipate and it can be exciting as we grow in relationship with the Lord. John 15 verse 15, I do not call you servants, slaves any longer for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you my friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father. So this is Jesus speaking. I have revealed to you everything that I have learned from him. So we're getting an understanding of who God is and just what God is making revealed to us. And he calls us friends. God is calling us his friend. We're not these people that he's controlling, but he sees us as his friends. And so we have to really think about that. Who do you say that God is because God is calling us friends. So who are you saying that God is to you? Do you see God as your friend or as your boss? So how you see God can affect how you see God. So let's say you have a boss at work, how you see them can affect how you see them. And the second, how you see them is how you respond to them, how you just communicate back and forth, how you see them, who do you see God is. So when I saw God as a boss, I felt like I was not working enough. So how many of us, sometimes we see God like that, God is our boss and we have to learn all of these things in the Bible and memorize things. And we see him as our boss and we feel like we're not working hard enough. That's how I felt when I started off reading the Bible and I became overwhelmed and I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to memorize all of this. And I wanted to desperately memorize all of it, but I just didn't know how I was going to do it because I was seeing God as a boss. And when I began to walk in that, I began to walk in condemnation and God doesn't want us to have condemnation because there's therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ. But yet that's how I was feeling because of my perspective of how I was seeing God. And I was seeing God as a boss, but God is calling us friends. So do you see God as a friend? When I saw God as my friend, I believe that God knew everything before I could even ask or think. And I know that that's so cliche because that is scripture, but I really did believe that. And then he knew when I slept, he knew when I rose again, he wasn't judging me and he understood me. So that's a big difference from seeing God as your boss. So it went from condemnation to he's my friend, he's not judging me, he loves me. But that's a revelation that you can only get when you're friends with someone. When you see someone as your boss, it's almost not allowed for them to be your friend. I once worked at this job and I had a boss and while they were a boss, they were just boss. They were for hi and goodbye. I did a good job. I tried to work my best and that was it. We both ended up being promoted to other places, but we began to have a friendship after this job. And so when I got to know my boss as a friend, they were so nice and we laughed so much and they were just completely different. If I had known this when I was working with them, I wouldn't have been stressed out. And I'm not saying to you I wouldn't have worked as hard but I would have known that they wanted me to have a good day. They wanted me to enjoy my job, enjoy my work. They didn't want me to feel like a slave. And so I think when the Lord says he sees us as friends and not servants, he doesn't want us to look at him as we're serving him. And so like we have no rights, we have no means to happiness. It's just all work, work, work. Yes, we work unto excellence, but God wants us to enjoy it. Our yoke is easy. Our burden is light. So we're looking at what kind of relationships we're having with God. So how do you see God? Now that I went over some different ways like that I saw God as my boss or as my friend, how do you see God? Because remember, if we go back, how you see God affects how you see God, how you communicate with God, how you speak to him and how you think he's speaking to you. It's so completely different. So have you allowed yourself to see God in different ways? So is God your healer? Is God your defender? Is he your savior? Is he your redeemer? Is he your light? Is he your strong tower? How do you see God? Do you have a testimony from these different things? Personally, I see God as my healer because God healed me. And when I see God as my healer, it's completely different. So when I didn't see God as my healer, I felt vulnerable. What do I do now? And I was depending on a different system that was in the world. But when you see God as your healer, and once you get healed, it's like you can never go back because God is your healer. Everything is always going to be okay since God can heal you. And so when you see him in that place, you can relate to him completely different. So is God your redeemer? Is he your strong tower? Is he your savior? When you see God as your Lord and savior, and you allow him to make decisions in your life, it's completely different than not letting him in. So these are different ways that we can have a relationship with the Lord, depending on how you see him is how you will call upon him. However, if you do not know the nature and the characteristics of God, you won't know what he is capable of or who he is. We must know his voice. We must know God. So when someone says, God told me this, or God told me that, you know God's characteristics. And if what someone is saying is lining up with the word, how do we know God's voice versus another's voice in our minds? So this is going to take us to 1 John 4 verse 1 to 3. Beloved, do not put faith in every spirit, but prove, test the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God. For many false prophets have gone forth into the world. By this you may know, perceive, recognize the spirit of God, every spirit which acknowledges and confesses the fact that Jesus is Christ, the Messiah actually has become man and has come in the flesh is of God and has God for its source. And every spirit which does not acknowledge and confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, does not proceed from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist if it's not coming from God, which you heard that is coming and now is already in the world. So let's talk about this. How can we get to know God better? We just talked about some ways to get to know God better, to pursue God in every situation. So one of the ways is when we have a relationship going and a way you keep a relationship going is you're going to continue to communicate. So just like if you know someone and let's say you're working with them and you come in and you don't talk to them, they're gonna know you're not talking to them and that's not keeping their relationship going. Let's say you know someone and you work with them and you come in and you just say hi in the morning and you say goodbye but you're supposed to be really good friends. Good friends talk to each other often. The more that you have someone around you that's a good friend, they get to learn you. So the more we talk to God, the more we're gonna know God by communing back and forth. When I commune back and forth with a good friend, I begin to learn them. I begin to learn what their favorite color is, where they like to go eat, what kind of car they drive if they drive a car, what are their favorite sports, what are their favorite hobbies. And so as you communicate with God, you're going to learn different things about God but also read the Bible. So then not only are you having conversations with the Lord and waiting on Him and expecting in anticipation for Him to answer, you're going to be reading the Bible as well. And what I would suggest to you, and this is just something that I do, you can journal what you ask the Lord. So make a list of everything that you've asked the Lord and as you wait expectantly, write it down when He answers it so then you can see when the Lord answers your prayers. And this is incredible because once you to do this, once you begin to track that God is actually talking to you and how often by writing down the date, you can even write down the time. You know, sometimes God can communicate with you through a dream and you can write down that dream. And then of course, if you're feeling like, I don't know, again test the spirits. Literally ask the spirit or whatever it is you're hearing in your mind, has Jesus come in the flesh? You can begin to ask that if you're feeling like, okay, I'm uncertain. But then also it says in the word, God will confirm His word with two or more witnesses. So if you hear something and you're trying to ask, let's say, has Jesus come in the flesh, but you're still learning God's voice and you think you hear something, write down what you hear and put a question mark next to it. Then ask the Lord to confirm His word with two or more witnesses. So once you start doing that, you're going to build this relationship. But journaling is important so then you can have a visual of, wow, I asked God this on Monday and by Wednesday, I got an answer. You're going to begin to see, wow, God is talking to you and that you hear God and you can actually see how you see God. It's so interesting. So I wanted to read in John 4.24, God is spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So when you're talking to the Lord, again, you don't have to use fancy words. You want to just speak what is true. Sometimes I would get in the closet and I'll be talking to the Lord. I'll begin to ask Him questions, but I'll talk to Him in truth. So I don't come to Him with fictitious things or I come to Him just with how I actually feel about something. Like one time I had gotten injured and I was just like, Lord, I'm seeing other people get healed. What about me, Lord? What's going on with me? Or, you know, what is it you want me to do? Help me to understand. So in this, when you come to the Lord with truth, you have to know that God is the author and the finisher. When you're coming to the Lord, you have to have already decided that He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. That every good thing comes from the Father of light. I look to the hills. That's where my help comes from. We have to know that God is the truth. So when you're coming to Him, you're believing it, or you can start just praying to Him and just say, Hey, I've got friends who believe in you and I really want to believe in you. Show me, show me God, how I too can have a relationship with you. Answer my prayers. So again, go back through and journal. Ask God questions. Don't tell the world about your questions. This is just a relationship between you and God. This is not for the entire world. And you're going to write it down. You're going to journal it. You're going to ask Him those intimate questions. You're going to have conversations about scripture. You can talk to Him about something that happened at your job. And let's say if you were offended, Lord, I was really offended by what that person said, because I cared about them so much, you know, and you can repent to the Lord. He's faithful to forgive you of all of your sins. And you can just go through that process. And God is just so faithful to forgive. So I'm going to go ahead and I will just pray. I hope that this brings you a little bit closer to having a relationship with the Lord versus just existing with the Lord. God, I just thank you right now that your spirit is pouring out on all flesh as they are listening, God, and that you are drawing them closer to you, God, as they hunger and thirst for you. God, your word says in Matthew 6, 33, seek ye first the kingdom and righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto them, God. And so I just thank you, God, that they're seeking you. They're seeking the kingdom, God, and that the kingdom has come nigh upon them, God. God, that you would touch their hearts, God, as they seek your face and as they ask you questions, God, that you would touch them, set them on fire for you, cause them to be changed and transformed like never before in the name of Jesus. Well, that's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this and I will see you next time. Bye.