First Love

Announcer: Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robyn Kassas and Dr. Nathan Kassas, where faith meets real life. In this week's broadcast, you'll discover practical and spiritual keys to reclaim God's story in your life, deepen your relationship with Jesus, and encounter him as your first love, whether for the first time or all over again. No topic is off-limits as we make Jesus real, relevant, and relational. Stay with us; your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Hello everyone, and welcome to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas, and I have Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, how are you?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing well. I love this sun.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. We're excited and we're enjoying the seasons that God has made. It's time for summer season.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it's good to see that God is in control of his weather.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Amen. Well, Dr. Robyn, last week's episode was a power-packed episode learning about the relational aspect of the Holy Spirit and how also the humanity of Jesus activates relationally when we actually allow him to make us real and relevant, which makes us relational.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that we talked a lot about taking in and regurgitating once you've swallowed and mulled over, and then bring it back up again and then swallowing again and getting less and less of having to swallow because it starts to land.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And something scientific that I wanted to add, but we could add to it another time, but that's why saliva is so important because it adds amylase and protease to our food, and it helps us to break it down. You can't have saliva unless you chew. And so it doesn't break down properly unless you keep chewing and chewing and chewing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's what we would call mulling it over.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, very good term for it. So today, we're actually going to move into a bit of a deeper direction on this one accord of real, relevant, and relational through the humanity of Jesus.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think the aspect of relationship, how important that is with what we've chosen to speak about as we've been led by the Lord to bring the importance of one accord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so, Dr. Robyn, why don't you begin to share with the listeners what the Lord has been telling you about one accord and how we need to have one accord first and understanding last.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, we've made such a big thing about trying to understand it before we'll agree on it. And that's not what scripture says. Scripture says this: that we are to be in one accord for the purposes of God's will, not because of what we gain, but who we gain in this one.

The most exciting things is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in total one accord. And we need to be in one accord with our mind, our heart, and our mouth. And then we will do the action, which will lead us to the relationship you have with the one, the created one accord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And so to give voice to those scriptures that you're talking about, we have Paul here addressing the early church in Acts 1:14. It says, "These all continued with one accord in prayer." Acts 2:1 says, "They were all together in one place," the upper room. Acts 2:46 says, "Continued daily with one accord."

The real clincher here is Paul echoing the same principle in Philippians 2:2: "Be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's all about God's business, isn't it? Can you see in that scripture one thing that you're getting? It's all about God getting. That's what one accord is all about.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And I think it's important to bring out the kingdom dynamic here because this is a kingdom infrastructure that's not likened unto how we live in the world. The world says understand to agree and then maybe you'll obey. But the kingdom structure is: agree, obey, and then you might get some understanding if God gives it to you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But you wouldn't need it. Why would you need it? Because you've already seen what one accord with the Spirit of God can bring.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And so something the Lord is showing me here when we're talking about the humanity of Jesus to bring it into this understanding—funny word—Jesus took off his deity when he was a human. He was fully God, yet fully man, but he took off the fully God part. I've got to keep reminding myself of that. So in reality, his power was not in his Godship.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No, it wasn't.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: His power was in his ability for his humanity to always agree with the Father's will.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and that was a plan that needed to be seen so that we could see we could do that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, and he says there in John 5:19, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing." So that really hit me when you were talking about accord and agreement. It wasn't in his ability to be God on Earth. He was—yes, he's God, but he took that off. So his ability to be fully human correlates to his ability to stay fully in agreement with who his Father is.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that if you looked at it in—you have the scientific stuff, but for me to look at it in gentle terms or human terms, you could see what was God really doing? He was showing that humanity can agree with God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's possible.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's possible. Someone needs to hear that listening to this. It is possible every day for your humanity to never leave agreement with the Father. That's what I just said.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And that is a dynamic that we should see and grab a hold of. But instead of that, we make the agreement all about ourselves and the touch and go.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, I had a name for it. I think I called it this type of "let's agree together."

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: What did I call it?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think you said it was a touch and go agreement.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, I called it something... Did I call it a stink bomb or something? I don't know what I called it, but it smells really bad because it's all about flesh. And flesh with flesh becomes rotten.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. You were talking about real agreement is based on relationship, not selfish desire.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It can't be. And so if you really agree, it's all about who you're agreeing with and not for what you can get out of it. But who you are agreeing with brings the relationship, and that's why it's God that you need our human form need to agree with.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So what you're essentially saying is, we think, "Agree with me for what I already want," is relationship. But you've already wanted it. You're not really opening for relationship to hear if it's what the other person wants, but ultimately, if it's what God wants.

That's what we do with the Lord. "Lord, I want this. I want this so much. Agree with me. Agree with me, Jesus." And we use that scripture in Matthew: "If the two of you agree, it shall be done on earth for you, whatever you will shall be given to you by my Father" (my paraphrase version).

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But let me just say something. That is so serious because you're not agreeing with your Creator. You're agreeing with two creations. You're created. He's the Creator. And two creations can't agree. There has to be a Creator agreeing with the creation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And that's what Jesus says in Matthew 18, when he says, "If the two of you agree on earth concerning anything godly." But here's a key, Dr. Robyn: those translators put those words "of you" in. They're not in the original text.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And they should never have been put there.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So if you read it without the "of you," right before he's talking about how the kingdom of heaven is like. And so he's saying really, if heaven and earth agree concerning anything—emphasis on earth agreeing with heaven, right? Remember the Lord's Prayer: "On the earth as in heaven." Then whatever you will because you'll be in agreement with what my Father wills shall be given unto you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we have to think about what we're showing here. And that's two people created agreeing so that God will agree with them. That doesn't work, guys. It doesn't work. It's all about the Creator agreeing with what you're trying to agree with.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, because agreement produces likeness.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And will bring relationship.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I think there was a time in the Bible, maybe before the beginning of creation, where someone wanted someone to agree with them because of what they wanted.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Oh, that caused a third of heaven to fall.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's the one. Lucifer said, "Yeah, this is my idea. I will ascend. Agree with me."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: "Agree with me, God. Agree with me. Come on, I've got a third of heaven agreeing with me. I only need you now to put the stamp on it and agree with me." And he would not.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But what the danger of—and this is what the Lord is showing me as you've said that—Lucifer was using them for his own selfish desire. He didn't say, "You will ascend if you come with me," demons or potential fallen angels. He went to them and he said, "I will ascend. I will be like God. Agree with me that we can be like God." But it was all for the sake of his own agenda.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But they were to agree with him for what they could get out of it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There it is. So he was making them agree with him for what he could get out of it, and they were using him for what they could get out of it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's what happens when you misuse that scripture. When you illegally use that scripture to cause you to agree to get something out of it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. So one accord is actually not agreeing with each other. It's agreeing with heaven. And then heaven can give you the interpolation of where your understanding and the person's understanding don't coexist. But because you're in agreement with heaven, heaven has the opportunity to bend your understanding and bring God's perspective.

But the problem is we always think we have to learn what the other person is understanding or what I'm understanding, and then somehow that will bend us into agreement.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, we always want to instigate the thing. And we miss out on surprise because when we allow God into this agreement, you will see that God can bring surprises. And we miss out on that. We surely do.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And so to bring it into a Trinitarian perspective of perfect congruence—and congruence, if someone is understanding what congruence means, congruence means total alignment between different parties. So my heart is saying or believing, my mouth is speaking what my heart believes...

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And my head...

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My head is understanding what my heart is believing. My mind is processing what my heart believes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And my hands move in activity in what is being believed.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. So heart, mouth, mind, all in one accord. And that is a direct mirroring of the Trinity. The Father wills, the Son speaks what the Father wills, the Spirit carries what the Son has spoken through what the Father has willed.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, or activates the Father.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So there's no resistance, like you've said before on First Love. No competition. Right? Even the Holy Spirit operates from agreement with the two other Godheads.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's why he came. That's exactly why he came: to activate that agreement of heaven.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, wow. And so if I could add a little neuroscience here to understand...

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Please. The body will witness it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: To understand the power of the wrong agreement. Because now we've talked about the right agreement, but there is inside of us through the old man nature, which is dead, but every day he likes to pop his head up and remind us, try to convince us that he's alive. There is this internal self-agreement programmed into every human being through the fallen sin nature.

And what happens is in our heads when we begin to want something so much and we begin to agree on that—I actually have a slide here what I was bringing up, a teaching that I'm forming about neural agreement and how it actually activates inflammation in the body.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I'm sure you can put it into principle now of process.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Absolutely. First, the first agreement gives energy. And then energy leads from an agreement to attention. So now you haven't just got my agreement, you've got my attention. That's right. So that leads to not just energy; something's not just energized now, it's strengthened.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, the wrong strength, the wrong strengthening.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And then that attention doesn't just give strength because what happens is, when something is strengthened, it repeats. So agreement gives energy, attention gives strength, repetition now begins to build a pathway.

What I started out with, a little agreement, "Oh yeah, this is what I know God wants," without asking the Holy Spirit—didn't set the filter, didn't set the boundary. Now that has been given attention. It's been given strength. Now I keep repeating over in my head and self-agreeing, "Yeah, this is what I know God wants. Yeah, this is what I know God wants." And it can work positively as well as negatively. This is how faith occurs. It builds a pathway.

Then from there, the soul transforms to what it has agreed with multiple times. So the soul becomes what it entertains. So we start with an agreement, and I'm going to bring this into our relationship with the Lord. We say, "Yeah, Lord, I want this. Agree with me that this is what you want." And we begin to...

Dr. Robyn Kassas: "I'll convince you it's what you want."

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There it is. And we begin to tell the Lord, "Yeah, this is what you want. This is what you want. Agree, agree." And so our brain begins to amplify that, and that leads from just an agreement now to attention. It's got our attention during the day. Our heart is pulled, right? Our mind is tuned. We can't not hear, or I should say we can't hear the interrupting argument from the Lord, "This is what I don't want," because why? You said it last night; the word is desensitized.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, yeah. You dull your hearing. You dull your hearing and your seeing and your dull your speaking.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And that's the result of that internal continual self-agreement in the name of God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. Yes, that is so unlawful. The way people use that scripture. That is so unlawful.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so again, going back to the neuroplasticity element of it, that preferred thought that I've given agreement to becomes the preferred interpretation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, it becomes your idol.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So remember he said to Ezekiel, "I will answer them through their idols." So that literally becomes the lens at which you begin to look at life through.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I told you, you're dulling your senses. You're dulling and you're dulling your inside senses. And then you become dull and you allow everything to be filtered in instead of being filtered out.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And so that thought becomes interpretation, which now becomes expectation. So can I put this into an everyday Christian's life? I go to God and I say, hypothetically—give me a hypothetical situation where I want God to agree with a scenario for my life.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, we can talk about wanting to marry someone. We can talk about wanting having a big ministry because you believe you have everything within you to do it. Flesh is burning. Well, those are two big ones. Two big ones. You're ready to go on multiple ones; I could tell.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, I am. Those are those two that we need to talk about. So let's talk about, okay, believing that someone is who God said they are for your life, right? A proposed marriage prospect. But God hasn't said it, but you've determined in you that's what God has said.

And so you keep bringing it to the Lord. You keep bringing it to the Lord. So you go through that first stage of first agreement, "Yeah, I agree with this." And then agreement gives way to strength. So now strength is amplification, and strength is more than just agreement; it's actual energy to keep replaying...

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Keep regurgitating the wrong thing.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: ...which you've done with these brilliant glasses that you made for our season casting. Now this fortress of thoughtress is built. It becomes the perspective at which you begin to look at.

So the first stage is, you know, that, "Okay, I have this as a thought." Now that is my preferred thought. So the Lord says, "Well, I haven't really talked to you about this yet. I'm not concentrating on this in your life; I'm concentrating on you and me." But my brain, because I've given so much energy to it, it prefers what I've thought about God and his word to me over what he's actually said.

And then that leads to the wrong expectation. So what does the wrong expectation present? Blame. "Well, I—you want me to be alone? You want me to live single for the rest of my life? You expect me to be like this?" And that is how the drop begins.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that agreement is seriously dangerous. You can use it and you can abuse it. It is so dangerous if it's not agreed with the right perspective. And I'm telling you, God has to be able to say, "I don't agree," but he also has to be able to say, "You will pay a price for that agreement. Are you ready to pay the price?" And still he might say, "But even though you say you're ready, I still cannot give it to you."

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And this is—Numbers literally talks about this with Balaam. The Lord kept saying to Balaam, "Do not go." Every time the king would come and say, "I want you to come and look at the Israelites from this perspective, and maybe you'll curse them from here." Yes, Balaam quoted to the king what God had said, but Balaam went because Balaam wanted to go.

And so when the Lord says "Do not go," but Balaam has a desire that he believes is greater than what God is saying, the desire becomes louder than the original instruction.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, you have to pay a price. There's a price to pay, and that doesn't even mean if God's going to agree with you. What about the disciples that wanted to sit next to Jesus? And they were then questioned and challenged, "Do you know what you ask?" "Oh, yes," because they thought they did. But he said, "You'll go through it, but it's not my place to say who will sit there."

That means it is a price that God wants you to see when you agree to something with someone or with yourself that will cost you deeply.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so as you're speaking that, I'm hearing the Lord say, when your desire and that agreement with what you think I want you to have—not what I've said you should have, but what you think I want you to have—it becomes louder than my voice. It begins to negotiate truth. And then here's what we said in our previous message; that's when truth is hard to hear because you dull yourself to truth.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. That agreement with self, it dulls someone to hearing real revelation. You begin to think your self-agreement is the revelation of God. And you begin to believe it is God's voice. And that's what gets dull.

And I'm telling you another one is that "I hear the Lord, and he told me that I can have this. So if you agree with me, he will give it to me." This is called charismatic witchcraft.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My notes here have got the problem isn't that God isn't speaking. The problem is you've already held the meeting in your head. You've already taken the vote. You've already reached a consensus and agreement with yourself, and now heaven is asking you to ratify it, but you're not ready to.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's the price. Ratify it; that's the price. And seriously, it's so dangerous that in the end, even God's voice gets dulled out so much so that you will then take on your own God image.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's when your desire becomes louder than your discernment. Is that what you're saying?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and that's when the idol is so much in front of you, you can't even see to the other side, the Lord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. So Dr. Robyn, last thought. I want to agree with you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Agree this is our last thought for today. No, we don't need to. We already know that by the grace of God. I tell you that scripture has to be handled legally. And there's so much scripture out there that is being illegally spoken. You'll need to find out what God's saying to you about that one. And you agree with heaven because it's heaven's business.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Amen.

Announcer: Thanks for spending time with us today on First Love. If today's message spoke to you, share it with someone. And if you're looking for more teachings, visit www.torcc.org—that's t-o-r-c-c dot o-r-g—for more. We'll be back next week, same time, same truth. And as you go, don't forget: the one who loved you first is still loving you best.