First Love

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to First Love. It is Friday, Dr. Robyn.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, we're here, and then the weekend, so we can just rest back for the next section.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, and we are very excited. We're preparing because we have our Season Casting coming up.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, it's going to be really different. We're going to have lots of visual and workshops.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Actually, this is happening tonight. This is Friday and it's happening tonight. We start tonight, and we will literally be having our Season Casting as we begin to unlock the prophetic year 5787 and what God is saying from heaven.

So wow, what a powerful thing. Please don't try and not be there. Come down to Times of Refreshing Christian Center, 2009 West 40th Street, in the heart of Manhattan, Times Square, and be a part of it. You can register still online at seasoncasting.talk.org, or registration is available at the door. This is a prophetic activation experience like you have never experienced before.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We're going to add into it physiology and a lot more science and, of course, theology and visual.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Visual effects, virtual reality.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So powerful, so important, and so not ever done in the church before. All these activation stations. You're going to have a conference that really brings the word of God alive in a way that you have not experienced before.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because we are finding out why.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My Lord in heaven. Well, Dr. Robyn, we have been going through the Valley Gate, and we have been talking on some really important things to do with the difference between being in the valley and seeing the valley as not a place of destruction or regression, but it's an actual progression to being fed, to having a blessing, and to gaining more character and maturity in Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that's what we need to hold on to, and that is that, yes, we are fed there and we do change there. But we don't stay there. So this should be handled now with no negativity, but excitement, anticipation of what's going to happen.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, so true. And so just a quick reference in the first testament that I'd like to bring out just to tie in how man's mechanism and his mindset is to go up before he goes down. I'd like to bring a contrast here in the Tower of Babel.

We see here man again trying to ascend. Man is making his own name. Man is establishing his own security, and man is building himself upward. They thought they could build a tower so high to reach God so they could be God. Unfortunately, they were mistaken.

But yet we have Jesus who descends, who humbles himself, who obeys the Father, who doesn't make a name for himself, who comes to serve and not be served, who goes to the cross, and as the result, God the Father exalts him and gives him the name.

I love this in Philippians 2. He has been given the name. He didn't self-promote the name himself. He's been given the name above all names.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I was going to say about how you were saying about going up and be God, but really be like God. And then we have Jesus who is God, fully God, fully man, becomes a man.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. Oh, my Lord. They wanted to be like God, and God wanted to be like man.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, be like man for our sake.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes, because he couldn't connect with man until he was fully man.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's correct.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: What a loving God we have. So I have a key statement here just to set us in order: Jesus never manufactured a name for himself; he only received the name that his Father had already given him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You can't beat that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We try to manufacture names. And this is tied to something we're going to talk about today. This is tied to the spirit of independence. And what is that really connected to in a neuroscientific way?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Tell me, please, so I can understand.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I'd like to dive into the biology of independence because the valley is to bring us into dependence upon God. But before you walk in that valley, you've got to go through the wilderness of independence.

Independence always says, "I can." But dependence or interdependence says, "Father, what are you doing? Show me so I can see." Independence is not necessarily rebellion that always looks evil.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No, it could look pretty good.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, it can look godly. I'd like to give a couple of examples. Sometimes independence looks incredibly successful. Independence can preach. Independence can build. It can lead. It can achieve. It can create. It can produce.

But it still operates from, "I know how to do this without having or needing to receive." And this is the lie of independence. It coaches you into a place where you don't need to receive from anyone or from the Lord.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So independence doesn't need to go for permission.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is the key. Because capacity and permission are two different things.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Totally, totally. I have many testimonies on that one.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I'm going to ask you to share because you have a really powerful testimony that you've shared at our School of Apostles and Prophets all the time, and it really lands in someone the physical example of it. But I'd like to say Jesus had the capacity.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And he had the permission.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, but he never took it. See, he could turn those stones into bread. He could call on his Father, and he says to Peter, "Don't you know I can call on my Father?" So he's saying, "I've got the capacity to do what your independence is seeking to do."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But he also was meaning, "I have the capacity, but I won't. Do you know that?"

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So powerful. Because we think capacity is permission, we operate independently from God.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, we do. I'll tell you my story. And this is about my capacity, but also my finances. I was capable of doing this. I, in Australia, had the ability, the finances to go to Phuket and to enjoy a really nice holiday with my family.

And so we made a lot of arrangements. But I also had a need to fix something up in my house. And so I was asking the Lord which one would he want me to apply. And to my surprise, he said to me, "I want you to fix your house."

Now, I would not have thought of that. I would have thought he would want me to go and take my family on a holiday at Phuket. But he clearly said no to me. And the reason why he said no I find out. If you know anything about Phuket, Phuket had a tsunami right when I was ready to go with my family.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: 2005.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I thank the Lord with all my heart that I got permission to do what God wanted me to do.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. So you surrendered your capacity to choose God's permission for what he wanted. You surrendered the choice back to him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I sure did. And thank God I did because me and my family are alive.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. I love that example. That shows what happens when we surrender our capacity through dependence back to the Lord. You've always said, "Give the choice back."