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 back to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas, and I am privileged to sit here and co-host with Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, how are you doing today?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing better. I just had to have some teeth removed, so it's going to be a work of grace tonight that I can speak properly.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, that's not ironic that we're actually going to be talking about the work of grace and healing located in the Pool of Bethesda, which we started to open up last week. We are so honored, Dr. Robyn, that even in your recovery, you're still giving us the best and pouring out all that God has done in you and through you with the revelation of your life as well as His Spirit. Thank you, because it's nothing small to be able to sit up here and do this after having some major dental work done.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Three teeth. Quite serious. I don't know how I'm doing it, but through the grace of God, I'm doing it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: For our listeners that are tuning in, whether you've been continually tuning in and following the series or are brand new, we are talking about the gates of Jerusalem and how each gate represents a different conversation and a different kind of journey that we go on with the Lord Jesus Christ in our relationship with Him.

Last week, we came to not a gate, but actually a pool, which is mentioned in John 5, right inside the sheep gate. So, again, just quickly recapturing the first gate that we go through according to Nehemiah 3. This is Nehemiah's rebuild, so some of those gates wouldn't be there today. That all points to its own spiritual concept and significance that man has removed the gates; man has removed part of the journey that the Lord set up.

We're using Jerusalem as an archetype and an example of how we go on this journey of building a relationship with the Lord, because every gate is a season and every gate is a transition in a conversation that we want to have with the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. It's important that we realize that the sheep gate is the first of the journey. I know we're going to bring this out further down the line, and that is why a pool would be near a sheep gate. Bethesda is going to explain that this is the state of the church. The church is still not healed, and so we have broken people ministering to broken people. The first thing when you find the Lord, or the Lord finds you, or you have your first love, is to be healed. You can't continue without the healing. Everything isn't just brand new in the first state. It's not. It has to go through the process. So let's talk about this tonight.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think one of the biggest attacks or one of the biggest detours against becoming is the idea that you have already become. It's probably the biggest enemy. I have a key statement here: the greatest enemy of becoming is the assumption that you have already become. To your point, Dr. Robyn, and not to bag or put a slight or a judgment on anything because we are all learning better ways, but we have to expose a megachurch concept that crept into Western Christianity. That was: get saved and serve.

Unfortunately, I don't see that in the New Testament model of the early church. I see them being sent out, obviously, and I see them being commissioned, but there was a time where the Lord ministered to their soul before they were sent out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: They had a time with Him constantly in His presence. That brought healing to them because He brought understanding to them.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think that the problem with a lot of church hurt today is that we get told, "Get saved, give your life to God, get sanctified, and then serve." Go find a position to serve, and then you'll find some kind of healing or some kind of redemption as you serve. The problem is you're still broken and serving, but now you're broken and affecting others' lives and not just your own. You're half empty, and you're ministering to empty or half-empty people. It's pretty sad because we're called to be a man of God, but we immediately go into being a minister of God. Minister of God immediately. That is not what God made in His image. He made a man in His image, not the ministry in His image.

People would say to us, "Come on, more conversation on healing? I've got to be healed from more?" Well, you're going to be getting healing every single day until the fullness is in your midst, Jesus, because there are so many effects of yesterday that are still present in your present today. Now, the curse of yesterday is broken, but the effect of yesterday is still present. It's still happening. That's what you have to go into that Pool of Bethesda for and be stirred by the Spirit for where those waters of healing need to apply.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's got to be right next to the sheep gate, and it was for that reason. But we are going to bring those five different things that should happen in the church when we feel that the Lord's releasing it. Just a little taste to let you know: when you become born again, you need to be healed, because they are becoming new.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: The problem, if I could come at it from a counseling perspective as someone who is trained in Christian counseling, the problem especially with pastors and leaders and those that serve in ministries is when we don't pursue healing before service. We think that our performance is what heals us. We think that our giving of our abilities and our gifts and our talents heals us.

Subconsciously, what the enemy does is he weaves into our understanding and our brain's processing. He makes us think all of our wholeness is tied up to the position that we hold. All of our wholeness is tied up to how we serve, how we give, how we are used or facilitated amongst different roles and positions in the church. There's nothing wrong with serving in church because we want to serve the house of the Lord because we love the house of the Lord, but we are the house of the Lord.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think the process is that the church has to be aware of the process of the sheep gate and what took place there. You can serve, but you've got to be in a place where they know that healing is as important now, to be healed before full service can come. What do they want to achieve out of all this? It is to give identity. But identity takes time, and it has to be healed of the old identity before the new identity can come forward in its fullness.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I would like to tie it in scripturally here. There is a very famous quote from Jesus Himself. We see this in Matthew, we see it in Mark, and I think it's again mentioned in Luke, but I'm going to read out of Mark 10:45: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many." Many Christians get touched by the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, and then they want to serve Him, but they won't let Him serve them through healing first. That's the one. He has to do the work first. Mine is a response to His work already done. So the old life has to surrender first right before you can even enter into that pool.

Here's a quick recap as we go into the break just to bring back all the points that we've been emphasizing about this important process and the location. The sheep approach the place of sacrifice where the old life is surrendered. The person is brought towards water next because the effects of brokenness need to begin to be healed. Let's go to a break.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Hi, my name is Dr. Robyn Kassas.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I'm Dr. Nathan Kassas. We'd love to invite you to join us every Monday at 9:30 PM for First Love.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: God is bringing us back to His original plan, a relationship with the fullness of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the full package of salvation, and it's available through this broadcast.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Join us for First Love every Monday at 9:30 PM.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because the one who loved you first is still loving you best.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: All right everybody, we are back. As always, that first part would be enough to sustain you, but God is good and we've come back to talk more about this Bethesda pool and its significance. Healing is so important. You cannot be whole unless you go through healing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's right. You're going to share with us about the five porches of healing there. I'd like you to share them, and I'll add something into this.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Historically and geographically, John specifically records in John 5 that the Pool of Bethesda had five porches. These were actually architecturally covered colonnades that surrounded the two pools, and there was a dividing wall between them. They provided shelter for the people that would gather there to go and dip into the pool.

Beyond the architecture of this, there's a spiritual significance. Many people who follow prophetic numerology and understanding would know that five represents God's grace and also His divine enablement. Why divine enablement is so important is because these five porches would have sick people surround them, but they would wait for healing. Here we can see you can be lying beneath and be in such proximity to the grace of God, but yet still unable to move into it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You can even be surrounded by grace and still resist the movement of grace that it requires. This is participation here you're talking about.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And that's where it links with divine enablement. God will enable you to participate, not to spectate.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Look, we have to be straight here, and we want to give a few points. We can sit under teaching, we can even live in a Christian community, and you can know that healing is available. You can even live or stay near the water—near it—but never enter it. With healing, there has to be participation. You can be close to it and not participate in the healing.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: What's important is that John records that this man had been near the pool for 38 years. He had been near his healing moment for 38 years, but he had never actually participated in it himself. We hear that later on in his discourse to Jesus where he says, "I have no one to put me in the pool, and when I do try to get in the pool, people get there before me." That's the Christianese explanation of why I'm not healed. You said something last week, Dr. Robyn, that landed in me. You cannot defend or protect the explanation around what has been killing you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And He came to kill what's killing us. The possibility of being beside something that can bring change is there, but you don't develop the identity around waiting. You must go into the pool of Bethesda.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You have to participate in it. When we stop participating, we develop an identity around stagnancy. That's exactly what it is. We develop an identity around waiting, but it's really not waiting because we stop waiting and we just start coping. When you start coping, you've stopped moving towards healing. You can actually interpret the stagnancy prophetically. You can do that.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Interpretation belongs to God, but in man's mind, you start adding your interpretation to your stagnancy.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I got it. It landed. So because this is happening, let's go back to five. I want to tie five things in here. Five is a very important number. Five is grace. Five is divine enablement. But also five is linked to the five "I wills" of Lucifer in Isaiah. Lucifer says in his heart to himself five times: I will ascend the mount of the Lord, I will make my throne, I will set myself up. This is a really important contrast. Our stagnancy comes when we stop living via the divine enablement of the Spirit for Him to say, "I will through you participate," and we stop the Spirit and we say, "No, I will."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we can actually be present near the water and still not even enter it, never actually get drenched by it. There were people who were in that water that didn't get changed. They remained unchanged because they didn't know that the water had to be stirred.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Prophetically, how this works is when we start coping, the waters become still. Now, we're not removing ourselves from David's psalm of peace, "He leads me beside still waters," but I want to present something. Why is He leading you beside still waters? You said it last week: so that He can stir them and restore our soul. Those still waters, even though they're peaceful, can also mask the stuff that we haven't let Him stir.

I'll give you a scriptural link here. When they came out of Egypt and they went to the waters of Marah, those waters were still, but they were bitter. God had to stir them. He told Moses to take a tree representing the cross, take its wood, and stir the waters because I'm going to make those waters from bitter to sweet. Something has to stir the stillness of stagnancy in our lives. God has to stir; He has to disturb. He has to disturb the surface of the water. He has to announce: this is your moment to move into healing. He's got to break the stillness that's going on.

God will always stir what has settled. What in you has settled for less than what He's promised? That means He will stir what has become familiar. He will stir the places where pain has become identity. He will stir the conclusions that you've stopped questioning.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I want to really say something to help people to understand here. He has to make an announcement. Spiritually, there has to be something announced. That's the stirring. We think that when the Lord does something, He just does it automatically. He is moving. God the Holy Spirit is moving, and what He is doing is He is announcing something. He has to announce it to get your attention.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: He attaches a significant event. Something of significance that catches our attention that brings us to question: what's my heart thinking here? What am I thinking in my head? What sort of thoughts am I thinking about? Because He says these thoughts are stinking thinking, and that's an announcement. You've been thinking wrong. You've been acting wrong. You've been moving wrong. When He announces it, you then get by the power of the Spirit the ability to listen to that announcement.

I think that ties in with this lie that when we think we've become, we think everything has been stilled and everything doesn't need to be stirred. We buy into that assumption that I don't need to address those things because the grace of God is covering it. Yes, the grace of God is covering it, but there is a truth that we learn in neuroscience: you can leave an old environment and still carry the bitterness of that environment in your nervous system. You can end an old relationship but still interpret every new relationship through the wounds attached to that old relationship.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You interpret it through not being in that change position from that old identity. It creeps up and you interpret it from that, and you don't allow that new identity to bring a true interpretation. That's the reason why there has to be a very, very strong announcement.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You can leave the old church, you can leave the old addiction, you can leave the old behavior, even an old season, but you could still carry the chemistry in your body and the wounds. It's very important because when Jesus meets this man in John 5 at the pool, he actually addresses the fact that this man has created what I call analysis around his paralysis. We know that statement "analysis paralysis," but here's something I'd like to present to our listeners: we are very quick to let God touch the paralysis, but we hold on to the analysis, which goes to what you're saying, Dr. Robyn, of our interpretation of why we're not healed, why this is happening in our lives.

When we don't surrender the analysis, we are protecting, like that man, our reasons. "I have no one to put me into the water. I've tried to go, but people get there before me." He had analyzed away his participation, and we do that. We analyze away our participation when God is stirring us towards His movement.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So there is disorder for a purpose. It's not just for the sake of disorder.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Say that again, because someone out there who's got disorder in their lives right now probably would attribute this to either being a demonic kind of thing or something that they've done wrong. But we're saying disorder is actually a part of God's process to begin the healing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's not just disorder for the sake of disorder. It has a purpose. I love what God is doing even in your personal testimony with your teeth. It was announced with an event, and God had to bring your attention through an event to something He was stirring in your own testimony with Him as He's doing with me. What I've learned as a holistic person is infection is a sign that something is off.

Also, I know through many teachings that the mouth is an area where a lot of rejection is formed and spoken out. A lot of rejection is spoken out, and you could have had that for years. I know as a testimony that the Lord is setting me free from the rejection of my life because my life was born in hostility. My main thrust in my testimony is the peace of God that passes all understanding. I look for that thread in my testimonies. Never do I look for the circumstance to be the thing that delivers me. I do not. So I don't give honor and glory for being delivered through situations and circumstances. It's the way I respond with the peace that comes that I don't understand.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Thank you so much for sharing that and being vulnerable and allowing us to hear part in what I'm looking forward to hearing more about: what God is doing in that peace testimony. Something God is showing me is that He brings us out of Egypt, but He has to remove Egypt's taste from our inner waters. That is that stirring that He is doing. He wants to take the taste of Egypt out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And the stirring movement confronts our human stagnancy.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And our stagnancy is our analysis to interpret why we've stopped in the first place. God will stir what has settled. He will because there is more that He wants to give, more He wants to expose, and more He wants to conquer.

Announcer: Thanks for spending time with us today on First Love. If today's message spoke to you, share it with someone. If you're looking for more teachings, visit www.torcc.org. That's T-O-R-C-C dot org for more. We'll be back next week, same time, same truth. As you go, don't forget: the one who loved you first is still loving you best.