First Love

Guest (Male): Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robyn Kassas and Dr. Nathan Kassas, where faith meets real life. In this weekly 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 relatable. Stay with us; your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well everybody, it is Thursday and we are welcoming you to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas and I have with me Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, how are we doing today?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing fine. I think this subject is incredible. It locates and recognizes and that is half the problem. We don't recognize and we don't locate and so therefore we just automatically think it's what it is, it's the truth, but it isn't, and we need to expose it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think it's really powerful to help people create certain markers to create a safety net in the sense of the net and the net-fishing we talked about. We're helping people to narrow the net of what they've been letting in.

I gave a teaching one time about the net of the ear and how we're always fishing with our ears, hearing things. We're narrowing the net with these markers. We really are.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The next one that I'd like to introduce is the peacemaker. Is the spirit-led peace or is it threatened-driven relief? A schemer may feel relieved when chosen the old schemes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So when I choose the old scheme, I might feel the threat of the schema relieve itself.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. Control can bring temporary relief. Withdrawal can bring temporary relief. Even accusation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Temporary relief is not the same as the peace of God. Why is that, Dr. Robyn? What is the difference between relief and peace?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I never get relief from my heart. Relief usually plays around in my head. I never get relief from my heart.

Colossians 3:15 says let the peace of God rule in your heart. When I get relief, it's usually coming through my thinking, not through my heart language.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think it's important to understand that there are different types of peace. We have the peace of God and then we have peace with God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And the peace of God that rules in our heart.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Some of the time we're trying to relieve the vacancy because we don't feel peace with God. This goes into the feasts of Jehovah and what they do in the believer's life. Passover, which is salvation, brings us peace with God because now we're no longer living in a sinful mindset.

We're snatched out of the world's chamber and we're put into the kingdom of heaven, so we have peace with God. But Pentecost, which is the infilling of the Holy Spirit, His Rhema, brings us into the peace of God that passes all understanding.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: This peace I feel only comes after if that's the peace I have, which is a counterfeit. If it only comes after control, if it only comes after something being punished, something to avoid, something to accuse, or something to protect my pride, then I need to recognize where this is coming from. If this peace merely relieves my anxiety, that is not peace.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let me read some neuroscience definitions here. Relief is often circumstantial and physiological, but peace can exist while the circumstance is still unresolved.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. The peace of God that passes all understanding. That means something's not resolved and you shouldn't have peace but you do. You don't understand it but you still have peace.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Relief occurs when something your brain perceived as threatening, demanding, painful, or uncertain is removed from the equation. The nervous system essentially receives information that says, "I don't have to defend against this right now."

Sympathetic activation decreases, muscular tension can ease, breathing may settle, and the person experiences relief. For example, "I thought I was going to lose my job but I didn't." That's relief. Peace is different: "I still don't know whether I'll have this job tomorrow but I know that God is with me."

Relief often requires the prediction to change. Talking about schemas and prediction, this is the difference. The schema will say something bad is going to happen, then circumstance resolves and the schema says, "Well, it didn't happen." The nervous system says, "Good, now I can relax." But God's peace can enter before circumstances provide evidence that everything will be okay.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Everything could be crashing around you. That sort of peace would sit you right in the middle of it all and just pass all understanding. You can't understand God's peace.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Jesus was in the boat. Everything was crashing around them but He was at peace. He was asleep at the bottom of the boat, which if you know boats, is a pretty crazy spot to be asleep during a storm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You really cop everything. Literally, it is the most turbulent place that you could feel. You bang and go from side to side. It's a terrible place to be.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: The difference here again, we want to bring up this powerful scripture, Philippians 4:6-8. Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Notice here Paul isn't saying God is going to take away the problem.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Let me just bring a little understanding to that. Can you repeat that again?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Sure. Be anxious for nothing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Now, anxious for nothing. Even the fact that you're anxious, He's telling you that for nothing you should even be anxious.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And the peace of God will guard your hearts.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Guard your heart.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And minds through Christ Jesus.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Christ Jesus. That peace talks about not fearing. Is the opposite to peace fear?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No. I think it's doubt.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Doubt, which works with fear. That means you're not allowed to be anxious for anything. No thing. Then you are only allowed to be anxious. I think it's another scripture that comes in further down that tells you even that's covered as well.

All of the scripture is covered when you try to walk out and go into something that is not God. You are to be anxious for nothing. If you're not anxious for anything, you should have peace and you should not be controlling.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But it leads one to the other. I want to point out a neuroscience way that this works. Peace breaks the cycle of the schema differently. Before we go into the break, let me bring this out.

Peace says, "I don't have to manipulate this situation in order to become internally settled." But relief will always tell you to complete the loop of manipulation to get the relief.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So maneuvering and manipulation work together.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: What happens is the schema activates, the prediction appears, your body becomes activated, but there's a gap. Then Rhema gets introduced. Trust is generated which leads you into peace, which produces no scheming necessary.

You don't have to manipulate the outcome. Why? Because you're at peace with God, you have the peace of God, and you're living from the peace of God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And you're in the middle of the situation and still having that peace that passes all understanding.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let's go to a break and we'll come back.

Guest (Female): Before you step into 2027, discover what heaven is saying about it. This is Season Casting 2027. Join Dr. Robyn Kassas and the TORCC team as we unlock the message of the coming Hebraic year, Zion, where heaven's blaze brings earth's transformation. Come and experience prophetic revelation for how heaven will move in 2027. Register now at seasoncasting.torcc.org.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: As we come back and we get ready to go into the next marker, I thought this statement would hit the head on the difference between relief and peace to help people understand. This is a marker. If my Rhema looks similar...

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If my Rhema is being birthed by God and it's not a schema, then it will be peaceable. It doesn't mean that it won't face calamity. It doesn't mean that there won't be trial or tribulation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's not what peace means. Remember I said you could be in the middle of something. It passes all understanding. Whatever is going on, it goes beyond that and still produces peace.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Relief comes when you finally know what is going to happen. You know what's going to happen. But peace comes when you finally know who is with you when you don't know what's going to happen. That is powerful.

If your schema tells you that you cannot have peace until you control its outcome, your schema will keep trying to manufacture relief. But when trust gives you peace before the outcome, then the schema has lost its job.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Hallelujah. Trust before the outcome comes is real peace.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That means peace works with trust. Let's move into the next marker, which is the humility marker. Why don't you read this one out?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Does this make me teachable? This is a big one.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Rhema brings the human heart under the authority of God. A schema often makes the human heart feel like the final authority.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We could stop right there. That's so true. It's dressed up as the final authority.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's important here that we say the human heart, not the human head.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The schema is also attached to the heart. Psalm 51 says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Here's the humility marker. Let's look at it in our favorite example, Mr. Peter. He says to Jesus, "Far be it from You, Lord, this shall not happen to You!" The Bible puts an exclamation mark because it's trying to emphasize how bad he got it wrong.

In Matthew 16:22, Jesus answered, "You are not mindful of the things of God but you are mindful of the things of the world or men." Peter sounds really loyal. If you've not got the right ears, you could think he really cares about Jesus. That's real humanism.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Humanism. "I don't want you to die. You shouldn't have to die. God is good enough to do it without you dying." He meant well.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: He was resisting the way of the cross. He did not humble himself to see that the cross was the only way. His framework for Messiah-ing could not yet receive suffering as a part of God's will.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: If what I am calling Rhema makes me unteachable, uncontrollable, or unable to submit my own interpretation to the way of Jesus, I should slow down and test it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And also uncorrectable.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Unteachable, uncorrectable, and unable to submit my interpretation to the way of Jesus. I should slow down and test it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Uncontrollable means not controlled by people but the control of the spirit over my emotions, my will, my mind, and my choices. All those things that have come into my interpretation of what God is saying.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: God's voice will never train you to violate God's love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is an important marker. We've got the peace marker. Is this spirit-led peace or is this threat-driven relief? Relief will always alleviate the threat but it will never give you peace.

Then we've got the humility marker. Does this make me teachable? God's Rhema is always going to make you teachable. It's never going to tell you you've got everything all at once. Let's go to the next marker, Dr. Robyn.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Rhema may correct, comfort, warn, or redirect, but it doesn't produce cruelty and call it boldness.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Which ties into the next marker, which is the marker of love. Does this align with the nature of Christ? His nature is love because He is love.

God's voice will never train me to violate His love. Rhema will correct, confront, warn, or redirect, but it will not produce cruelty and call that authority or boldness. It will not produce pride and call that authority. It will not produce suspicion and call it discernment. Scripture clearly says love does not seek its own in 1 Corinthians 13:5.

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not self-seeking, and it does no wrong. All these markers God has given us are for narrowing the net to decipher what's us, what's Him, and what's the devil.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Love never seeks its own.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We saw this again scripturally in John 13:35. "By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

We could close the broadcast right there because some of the Rhemas that I have are actually schemas because they lack love. They actually constitute me being right.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Is it being right or matchless grace? It is not important to God to be right. It's more important that you have that matchless grace, because grace is something we've been given that we don't deserve.

How can we say someone doesn't deserve it when we don't deserve it? We need to give matchless grace. You can't say they don't deserve it and that's what rights do.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's the importance of Jesus. In Him is the physical manifestation of truth but also mercy. With the woman caught in adultery, He gives her the truth but then He shows her mercy. He responded to her in a graceful way that she did not deserve and that's what changes and convicts her.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We all don't deserve it, but He still responds to us like He responded to her.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If my Rhema makes me less like Jesus, it is not the voice of Jesus speaking. You've probably got a schema that's trying to look like Jesus, but it isn't Jesus.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Definitely isn't Jesus because Jesus is love. If you are just making an excuse for your behavior, then you're not showing love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: The next marker as we come to the close is the identity marker. Does this confirm God's identity over me or the wound's identity over me?

This is really important because a schema will always say, "This is who you became because of what happened." But the Rhema says in Jeremiah 1:5...