First Love

Voiceover: 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 relational. Stay with us. Your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome back to the First Love broadcast. It is Dr. Nathan here sitting with the learned, the knowledgeable, the very, very smart and capable Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, we are talking about schemas and rhemas.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and it looks like we're not quite finished yet.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, because the Lord has more to reveal. Yesterday, we got to go through the first marker to identify if this is my schema or is this a rhema that God has revealed to me. We said the first marker was the source.

Now, let's go straight into number two because we don't have much time to waste. The second marker is the scripture marker. We're asking the question with this marker: does this agree with the written word of God?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it never goes against the written word of God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. I think this is really important, Dr. Robyn, because our prime example here and our prime figure is Jesus Christ Himself. He's on the Mount of Temptation and he has all of these great prophecies, all of these great knowledgeable things that he could quote back to the devil. He's the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He took that off, but yet he's the Son of Man, Son of God in the flesh, and he goes back to what? The written word.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And he goes back to the word that was inspired by God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is the one. So, rhema never contradicts scripture. We have to get that established. Some people hear rhemas that go against the Bible.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But let me just say, some rhemas, if man was to look at it, can be stretching the scripture. But it's not, but it can look like that because it goes a different way than what we thought.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: The interpretation of the scripture has not been correctly interpreted, and therefore it looks like it's contradicting scripture, but it's actually adding a right interpretation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The right interpretation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So, here's an important thing. 2 Timothy 3:16, we're going to throw out some good scripture here. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." That's 2 Timothy 3:16. Scripture also says in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, "Do not despise prophecies, but test all things; hold fast what is good."

I think this is a really important thing here. I was actually debating with someone. They were trying to bring up an argument: how do I know that scripture is given by God and not chosen by men? I was saying to this person that the first thing is that you need to fully establish that it's God's word and that it's not man's word. Because if you believe that it's man's word and he's chosen what God is saying, I kind of use the analogy like this: everybody reads something else that someone else has written.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and everyone can write their own interpretation and their own perception about it, but God inspired it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. See, if you can't differentiate interpretation from inspiration, there is a major problem. So, here, rhema is always going to align with the inspired word of God. What does that mean? Let's pull it into a basic thing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Let's take it apart.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My rhema: God said because I love this person and they're the same sex, I can marry them because love is enough. Love without truth is not enough. The word of God, Dr. Robyn, inspired by God Himself, says he created them male and female.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So we'll leave that with the person to think about that because we don't want to break into something, but it's inspired by God: male and female. So, you go back and see what God says.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let me bring another example, a little bit more of a spiritual kind of dynamic. My rhema says that I don't need to submit what I'm getting from God to my pastors.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's one we really can look at.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because Jesus speaks to me like he speaks to them.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But he speaks to you on a different level. Your pastor is accountable, and he will be held accountable. But you won't be held accountable for his sin, but he will be accountable for your sin.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Crickets. I wish I had crickets right now, a sound effect, because that's the truth.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think this is something that we have to look at because he chose to give different offices and calls. Not everyone will have that call, but not everyone will be held accountable for the call like a pastor, a teacher.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So powerful. I think there are a lot of Christians that stretch scripture that way. They throw another part. I don't like when people do this, and I'm learning as I study: whenever you take scripture, you have to take the context, not just the content. You can't just take a verse and use it to prove your point. You shouldn't be taking scripture to prove a point in any way.

But we do that. We take scripture that we like, but we forget the context, and then we forget that scripture is always linked to other scripture. So God would never go against the order that he set up in his own church. He gave them, remember, the foundation is Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, but then he set up apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors as the five-fold ministry to govern the church. So in one scripture in Ephesians 4, we have that call, but then we have another scripture that says well, every believer has the Holy Spirit. So are they contradicting one another? Absolutely not.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Not at all. God never contradicts Himself. It's the same word yesterday, today, and forevermore. It's the interpretation that you're applying that is contradicting what God has already inspired.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So, this is an important thing. If my rhema causes me to ignore scripture foundation, bend scripture, manipulate it to my advantage, or excuse my own disobedience, God has not spoken.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I totally agree. I wanted to look at the word discernment and the word debate. You see, God gave discernment, but he did not give debate. He never meant for man to debate His word. To discern the word, but never to debate the word. And when you debate the word, you can't debate the word of God that's inspired by Him. You're debating God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And this is what the devil tried to do with Jesus on the Mount of Temptation. He tried to say, "Yes, it is written, and it is also written. Let me debate you. Let me bring out my point. Let me use the scripture to show you my strength of my argument." And Jesus said, "Guess what, Satan? It is written: don't put the Lord your God to the test."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So that's a real schema when he debated. When you debate, I'm sorry, it's not the spirit of God. It's not.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So, using scripture—

Dr. Robyn Kassas: When you discern, that's when you're using the Holy Spirit's gift of discernment.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So if our rhema—I'm going to bring it into your natural everyday application—if the rhema that I'm hearing causes me to move into a position of debating, then that is not a rhema. Because God never proves. He doesn't have to prove. The truth is the truth, whether you have to prove it or not.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Whether you believe it or not, it's the truth.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And unfortunately, I find, and here's the seriousness of it psychologically, I find that people that always have to use scripture to debate don't believe the scripture that they're debating with.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's not convinced, your spirit-man.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because you wouldn't have to debate it. Paul never debated. He said, "I know that I know that I know."

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So Jesus did not treat pressure as a permission to create a new rule. That's the one. Pressure on the Mount of Temptation, a lot of pressure. Fasted 40 days, 40 nights, got no spiritual strength in the sense that his body is weak, but yet it did not give him permission to create a new rule. He stuck to the written word of God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's the one. I'm telling you: appetite, identity, questions, shortcuts—he stuck to the word of God. He answered with "It is written," not "It is said." We'll come back after this break.

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Dr. Nathan Kassas: All righty, Dr. Robyn, we are back, and that was a powerful first 12 minutes, probably very convicting. I just want to clarify here, when we mentioned that thing about the rhema and the schema of same-sex, we're not judging.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No, because like I just said, the ancient truth will always be told from the pulpit. That doesn't change. That doesn't change the love of God for the man or the woman, but it's the truth that must be spoken. And so, it's got to be that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I just want to encourage someone out there listening, if they are listening to this and they have lived that lifestyle or are engaging in that lifestyle and they want freedom: you want God's truth to never change. Because that's true love. Love that changes because of behavior or because of how you identify in the present isn't real love. Real love is love that is constant yesterday, today, and forevermore. That's the security of your life. You can trust that love. You can't trust a love that changes based on your emotions.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, and it's got to be the same message, never changing, from the pulpit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So, Dr. Robyn, that brings us into our next marker because a lot of this does change from the pulpit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Now, I like this subject.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So you bring this one out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's the fruit marker. Number three, the fruit marker. Write it down. What does it produce in me? So if I am coming to a place where I'm looking at my blueprint—the blueprint of my life—is it bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Because if it isn't, it's a counterfeit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Jesus teaches us to discern by fruit. "You will know them by their fruits." Matthew 7:16. Galatians is the one that names the fruits of the Spirit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But let's name the fruits of a schema: urgency, suspicion, accusation, control, secrecy, self-protection, emotional certainty without humility. They're different fruits, Dr. Robyn.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: They can't even counterfeit that. There's no similarity in any of that fruit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And what I always say when I'm counseling is: the more fruit a tree bears, the lower it hangs.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And the riper it is, it'll hang real down.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And that points to where we're going, the valley gate. When God is producing fruit in you, it's not an elevation of self; it's usually a descent of self. Because your humility before the Lord to reverence Him is the thing that becomes a security in your life.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it's good that we're going to that place because as we finish this subject, we're going to go there, and I think that's necessary next. Because otherwise, it's just principles.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So true. So again, rhema may bring conviction, but it produces the fruit of the Spirit as it leads me to obedience. And we have examples there, James and John. When that Samaritan village rejected Jesus, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" Luke 9. And Jesus said, "You don't know what spirit you have." He's looking at them going, "Hang on, you're not discerning the Spirit of Christ. That's not the mind of Christ. That's not the fruit that I'm producing in you, this judgment and this damnation."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Where's the kindness? Where's the longsuffering, the self-control, where's the faithfulness, gentleness? Nothing in that statement shows that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So we have to ask the question when it comes to fruit: am I using spiritual language to justify retaliation, punishment, contempt, superiority? I may be classing, if I'm doing that, my schema as a rhema. Very important because this will help us identify the differentiation. It's so similar, the language that we hear, but yet the motivation is completely different.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But if you go back and have a look at the fruit of a schema, let's have a quick look at that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Urgency, suspicion—

Dr. Robyn Kassas: See, urgency is not spontaneity. It's impetuousness. That's it. You are always moving in impetuousness. It's got to happen now. And that's what Peter did.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And urgency says, "If I don't get it now, or if it doesn't happen now, it will never happen again."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's lack of faith. And urgency, you think that's going to push God to move faster. And he only responds to faith, not urgency. My Lord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I feel like the Lord wants us to bring a differentiation between aware and alert. Your nervous system operates on alert, but God wants to bring you into the regulation of aware. Because if you always operate on alert, your system and your city will always live on an alarm, and you'll always think everything's a threat. The butterfly flying next to you is a threat. You know what I mean? Everything is a threat.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's always negative. Love is a threat, life is a threat. The ice cream on the ice cream truck is a threat. Everything. That's ridiculous, my statement.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I'm serious, but we can believe that.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: There's poison in it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Literally. You can't enjoy a single thing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Probably is a threat, but we won't go there. And I wanted to bring up suspicion, because that is not discernment. Totally against what Paul said. What does he tell us to think on? Good things. No, doesn't he tell us to think on suspicion? No, he doesn't. He tells us to think on good things, lovely things, pure things, things of good report. If we think on them, we'll never be suspicious. To the pure, all things are pure.

So when we go next to the accusation, how does that go with the rest that we have up here? Accusation, accusing—

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, accusation for me is always linked to fear, always. You always accuse somebody out of fear. It's the parable of the talents. "I hid it in the ground because I thought you were a hard taskmaster." Reaping where you haven't sown, and always thinking I've got a reason, a good reason, to do that because what I think of you is hard.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, it's so true.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Secrecy is another fruit of schema.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Oh well, we have to be very—look, we should have that fruit in the fruit of the Spirit: transparency. Because secrecy is not of the Spirit. Being secret about something, that keeps it in the dark. You see, secret things are in the dark.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I don't like it. I never let anyone tell me, "I'm going to tell you this, but you can't tell anybody else." I always say to the person, "If you're going to tell me, then I'm having the right to determine who I tell someone who can handle the situation." Because secrecy always goes along with control, which comes next. Control is a fruit of schemas, and they always work together. And that's another marker that we're coming to.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But isn't that control pride? And then do we have the self-protection? We don't even need God when we're protecting ourselves. It's a form of idolatry.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And it also is a lie because it convinces us that God's protection isn't enough. We exchange His protection for our own because we think we do a better job.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's it. That's where the idolatry comes in: self-protection. Not protection, self-protection.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And as someone who has operated in self-protection a lot, I really had to get to the core of this lie: raising up defense in confrontation and areas of conflict, I would always come to this reality when I would journal with the Lord. I really didn't believe that God was able to protect me. I believed my excuse was a lot stronger than His Spirit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think it comes down to that. I really do. Unbelief. And this one: emotional certainty without humility. Man, that speaks of pride.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Again, another one I struggle with, narrow-mindedness.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Narrow-mindedness, but listen: without humility, you want to be certain about everything. What does the Bible say? Wisdom, not certainty.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I like to say if you're certain about everything, then you're going to be wrong about everything.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Could be. I can see that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So, an important thing here as we come to the close and we start to wrap it up: again, I want to say this statement. If I am using spiritual language to justify my retaliation, punishment, contempt, or superiority, I may be, just a little suggestion—

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Classing my schema as a rhema.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Very important. Because this will help us identify the differentiation. It's so similar, the language that we hear, but yet the motivation is completely different. We will catch you tomorrow as we finish the markers and move into the next phase. God bless you.