First Love

Guest (Male): Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robin Cassis and Dr. Nathan Cassis, where faith meets real life. In this weekly broadcast, you'll discover practical and spiritual keys to reclaim God's story in your life, deep in 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: But when we talk about the mercies are new, what happens is as we go to sleep, a fluid washes up from the base of our spine, and it's called cerebral spinal fluid. And it washes over our brain in a process called neuroplasticity. And what that does is it allows the brain to get rid of any toxic neurons that have not been synapsed to a thought or any thoughts that have not led to life in our minds. So God allows this fluid to come over our minds and wash us clean um so that when we arise, we have 30 up to science tells us we have up to 30,000 new neurons that get created in that neurogenesis process.

And what that does is it gives us a chance again to think a fresh, to think a new. If I went to bed or even if you're listening to this tonight and you've had a day where you feel, you know, there's been so much anxiety, there's been so much fear, there's been so much, you know, um misunderstanding of what God's doing, and you felt shame, or you felt, you know, brokenness, and you don't know, and you think, well, how am I going to get up tomorrow and live? You got to understand that God knows your frame, he knows your name, and he knows your pain.

And so he will never do anything that goes beyond your frame. Remember the scripture says he'll only give us what we can handle. So he's given you the amount that you can handle for today. But here's the great thing. He gives you grace for tomorrow by letting you get rid of all that toxicity and start a fresh.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So that was the key that to me that was the key. So if you feel a failure,

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: if and that you feel you can't come into the presence of God. In the morning, you get 30,000 more chances

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: to do it right.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And the powerful thing about it is those are waiting. The brain washes over, you know, with this cerebral spinal fluid. It creates a neurogenesis. So Genesis is the beginning again. It's the the re-beginning. So it's like the word washing over our brain, which is the scripture. The word washes us. So we're literally getting washed at night, and then when we wake up, we have a chance to program our minds to new information right off the bat. So I usually tell people that I'm working with in coaching and counseling. This is why the Lord says it's so important to seek him in the beginning of the day.

You know, again, scientifically, coming out of sleep, when we come out of that brain wave cycle, we come up from Delta, we come up from Theta, we move into an Alpha brain wave state. So for the first hour when we're waking up, the Alpha brain wave state is so, you know, creative. It's so imaginative. And children usually live in the Alpha brain wave state from 0 to 7 years. This is why they are so vivid with their imagination. Beta is what happens when our Alpha brain waves speed up, and the stresses of the day come in.

And now we kick into the logical, the rationality part of our brain. We start assessing, well, how's that going to work? How's that going to fit into my understanding? But the Alpha brain wave is, you know, where Jesus said, do not suffer the little children from coming unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven. He's not talking about the kingdom of heaven belongs to children. He's talking about the kingdom of heaven belongs to someone who has childlike faith. And not childish faith. See, we have to make that separation. Childlike meaning, what's childlike? Childlike means I've never experienced it before, so I don't have a judgment of what it could be.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, I don't have doubt.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I'm not questioning

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: because I believe. Children believe.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. My little girl, you know, she wakes up and JL, she's 3 years old, and she believes that she's a gymnast. You know, and she gets straight to her bar, and she just starts working on her tricks, and there's no rational limitation of, well, I can't do this because I haven't trained in it. I can't do this because I haven't actually, you know, spent time working the skill. And don't get me wrong, God uses our rationality, but a lot of the time our rationality of trying to understand through our own perception what God is doing, it gets in the way.

So this is a really powerful thing when we're coming out of that neurogenesis. If we can engage with talking to Jesus in that Alpha brain wave state, we won't deal with the onslaught of other thoughts that might negate his voice in that moment.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that will lead us to wanting to have communion with God and have this conversation with him and learn that he wants to speak back to us

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: not give us orders, but speak back to us in a relationship, speaking about what your cares

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: and what you are going through.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so that can lead us back to finding something that we lost.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, like the first R that we're told in Revelation 2, remember.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And remember.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You know, remember that God wants to hear what's on your heart. He wants to hear those things that are burdening you, concerning you. You know, I always use the the example of that servant that said, I knew you were hard, so I I took what you gave me, and I buried it in the ground.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And sometimes in our relationship with the Lord, and in my own personal relationship, my heart can my heart can get hard because I start to say to the Lord, you're hard. You 're doing this on purpose. And I don't remember the covenant that he has with me. And so when I can't remember that, it allows the enemy to give me all these falsities of God's character. And one thing God's been teaching me through all my doctorate in the last 4 years is my understanding of him is not him. You know, we're told, don't lean on your own understanding, right?

But in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will lead your paths, right? So my understanding is really not, you know, and I want to bring this into someone that's listening and go, well, what do you mean by my understanding of God? It's not a negative thing. It's our perception of who we think he is through our own interpretation. You know, Joseph said to Pharaoh, interpretation belongs to God. He said to those people in prison with him, I can't do it, but God can. And I think the Lord is getting the church back to seeing him for who he really is, not who we think he is.

Because who we think he is is our perception, and that actually becomes deception.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It becomes the thing that deceives us in seeing the love of God and the fullness of his character in our lives.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And also we we see him for what we want him to be.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Come on, Dr. Robin. This is it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so therefore we um we miss out on um the Lord speaking more clearly to us about his love for us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: If we could only understand that God loves us. We love him, but he loves us. That is so important to understand because that's how relationship is built through communication.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And when we communicate together, we build our relationship.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And people think that if they just speak to God, God will do it. No, God wants to have communication with us, speak back to us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Then we start to discover there's a loving God that's so interested in everything that we do.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. Wow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Everything. Yeah. And so we want to talk more about this. Let's do some more talking about this.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, well, I I think of Jesus's words, you know, man does not live on bread alone,

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: but out of every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Correct.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so in my Christian walk, in my relationship with God, if he's not speaking, then I'm not alive. Because his word is my daily bread. And we have the word written. We do. We have the Logos. You know, but the the scripture also says that the letter of the law kills without the spirit. And so if you don't understand what that is, we have the scripture. That's the highest authority, but how that scripture becomes applicable to this day requires the Holy Spirit to bring that alive. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about engaging with the Holy Spirit and bringing that alive and bringing it as truth.

Because here's an important thing from a psychological standpoint. If truth is not a truth that you can live now, you'll never live it. And that's an important thing because, you know, it has to be something that I feel truth, not that I just hear. Because science again tells us when we have a felt experience, we don't know the difference between a felt experience or a thought out experience. This is why coaches will spend years drumming into their athletes. I want you to visualize winning that gold medal. If you can feel yourself in training winning that gold medal, your brain doesn't know the difference between you actually winning it and you actually competing for it.

So it's the same with truth. We've got to feel the truth every day on a real, relevant, relational level. We can't just read that his mercies are new every morning. We've got to feel that. We've got to let that come alive in us. We've got to become one with it. And when we do that, it becomes a term that I use a lot is embedded into our actual spiritual DNA. It becomes a part of us. And when it becomes a part of us, it changes us. That's how God transforms us.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think you said uh we've got to feel it, that it's like the reality of what is being said. It comes together with the way God created the body to be.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's part of getting the realization of it that will bring that feeling.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. Yes. And understanding the fullness of how he's created us. It brings it alive. And it brings us to a place where it's not just nice words on paper. It's truth. It's reality.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Not just facts.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's not facts. It's truth. You know, truth is a person, Jesus Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You know, facts are good, but facts don't change you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Truth changes you. And so, you know, as we go on this journey, we're bringing alive that evidence of truth in people's lives. And even if you don't know Jesus and you're listening to this for the first time, we want to introduce you to the love of God through this truth becoming so alive for your life that you feel it and it transforms you and it changes you from the inside out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think as I 've learned through your teachings with me for years I've I've hung on to hope. But now they have become real.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So real to me that I have hope when I fail or if I miss it, I have hope

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: because I then understand the way God created my body to be

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: which gives me the chance to have that hope.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. That's important. And so as we get into, you know, the topic that we're going to keep on bringing out, I want you to understand something. Today might have been a failure for you. It might have been a day where you didn't walk out what you purposed to walk out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You know, practically, you might have let your tongue slip. You might have had some anger. You might have said some things that you regret. And you feel the shame. You feel like we call it in counseling the could have, should have, would have. I wish I could have done that, and I should have done that. And the enemy has a way of just besetting this shame and this regret. But if anything from what we've said right now is that we want you to understand, you have 30,000 chances tomorrow to start again. Let your sleep tonight bring a washing over and let it bring you to the place where you can start thinking a fresh tomorrow.

Guest (Male): You're listening to First Love with Dr. Robin and Dr. Nathan Cassis. The story isn't finished yet, and neither is what Jesus wants to reveal to your heart today. Let's jump back in and pick up right where we left off.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: God knew that you would, you know, and I would end up failing because we're human. We have our humanity. We can 't dismiss that. We do our best to fall forward into faith every day. And like Pastor Tony says from our church, I sin less today than I did the day before because it's a work of grace. And grace is transforming my heart, not just my mind. But this is an important thing. If you are listening and you said, well, that's me. I've done that. I want you to understand this. Your first love, Jesus Christ, he understands your humanity, and he's given you a chance tomorrow to start a fresh right from the bat.

When you wake up, you don't have to go through the day feeling like, you know, playing catch up. You can actually start a fresh. And how do you start a fresh? You invite him in. Isn't that right, Dr. Robin?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's correct. And I I wanted to talk a little bit more about you these mercies

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: and what they accomplish. They deal with such things like deferred hope.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We need to have hope. When we look around us, we need to have hope.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: When things are the way they are in our life, we need to have hope. And the atmosphere can sometimes lead us to have deferred hope. But knowing that God gives us this chance every single day, there's 30,000 new mercies that deals with deferred hope.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that can cause us to open up to his love again.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: What do you think about that?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, I think that really touched me what you said because sometimes when our hope is deferred, our heart closes off. And we make a choice inside to hold back from the Lord, to withhold because again, here comes the psychologist in me. When we withhold, it's a self-protection mechanism. We're protecting ourselves because we feel threatened. You know, we wanted to trust God in an area, and we didn't see what we were trusting for come to pass.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So we hold back deliberately because we're protecting ourselves from being hurt again. Vulnerability, it it's a risk for the heart. And so when we begin to hold back, it really does begin to send us on a trajectory of removing that passion that we had for God, that first love experience. You know, but I preached a message on First Love, and I want to just present that First Love is a starting point.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But it's not an ending point.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because First Love lacks maturity.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You know, it's like when you see someone and they fall in love for the first time, love at first sight in a relationship, that's all well and good, and the, you know, the honeymoon period.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But then once the honeymoon period for a couple is over and they come back and they start living together and they learn each other's idiosyncrasies and they learn each other's, you know, habits and weaknesses. And you know, I was like that with my wife, right? I love her. And when we were on the honeymoon, it was, oh, I could just live here forever. But then we came back and we started living together, and there were certain things that I did that she was, wow, okay, this is a shock to me. And there were certain things that she did that was a shock to me.

And so First Love is the starting point. But mature love is the end point.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Of course.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And uh maturity requires something that I really specialize in teaching on, and that's different choices. See, we can apply those new mercies every day, and that's the power of the grace of God. But if we're committing the same choices and we're doing the same thing over and over again, then those mercies are the grace of God. But we're choosing in our own volition, our own will to activate that negativity. See, God can say to me, you don't have to live with that negativity. You can wake up, and you can feel my peace.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But if I choose to let my peace be robbed via anxiety or via fear, because here's the key. Whatever I give significance to, that's what has effect in my life.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So you are saying that we should take responsibility

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: for our choices.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because sometimes that's the thing that will affect our first love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. We choose sometimes to let other things take the position of the love of God. Because like I said, we're convinced that they'll protect us. You know, fear tells us through control, if I don't take if I don't keep my hands on this, I'll lose it. So that fear of missing out, it leads us into wrong choices, wrong things for our life. And again, here comes, you know, the psychoanalyst, choices become cyclical, meaning they are generational. They're trends. They create a pattern that we fall into, and we keep making the same choices, the same choices, and the same choices.

And before we know it, it feels like we're on autopilot in life. So I want to help others to understand the grace of God is there, but it's not there for you to keep making the same choices. The grace of God is there to enable you to choose better. And that's an important part of First Love because you've got to choose that, you know, you're coming back to the original plan.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so he actually gives us the ability

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: to work with what he created us to be even our minds.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So it's not just the choice. We get to work with what he put into place.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, wow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And uh work with the right choice. We're going to be moving back to finding our first love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. Wow. And that's what the Holy Spirit was revealing to me as we were getting ready for this broadcast and this new venture. He was telling me, I'm going to help you unlock people from making the same choices that lead to heartbreak and fear and anxiety and depression. There's a saying that I created, you can stop the drop of depression.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You can stop it. It's not automatic. You can make the right choices. Now, we're told in scripture, if you're not educated in those choices, then that's what we're here to do. If you're weak, then we strengthen you. If you're making the wrong choices, then in God's love and with truth, we have to, you know, rebuke in the sense of counter with an interrupting argument what you believe is truth and bring a louder argument of truth.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because that's how the brain works. But the choices are so important because I can wake up with those new mercies and be in, you know, the flow of feeling that grace towards me. But if I go into a position of life where I make the same choice that I did the day before that put me in that position to feel inadequate or to feel depressed, then no matter how many mercies are released, I have the power with my choice to unlock those mercies. And that's an important thing for each and everyone listening to understand. God's love for us is so powerful that he wants to enable us through that first love, mature love to come to a place where we choose better, not because we're choosing out of pain, but we're choosing because we know he knows best.

Guest (Male): 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 torcc.org 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.