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 relational. Stay with us; your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Hello everybody and welcome back to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas and I have the amazing Dr. Robyn Kassas sitting with me. Dr. Robyn, how are you?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing very well, thank you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's been an amazing week of testimonies and God's movement.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Especially today. What a day today was.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Powerful, powerful things. Both in our churches in Sydney and in New York, there has just been praise report after praise report. It is a season of God bringing things to a close.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And also many, many healings.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Prophetically, we've entered the season of Hanukkah, which is a season of rededication where the oil keeps burning. I have just seen, in light of what you shared last week, Dr. Robyn, about the candlestick and asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate and bring that revelation to our hearts and our spirits.

Sometimes I think we think that it's automatic. It really helped me in a situation where I had to just walk through something personally and just remind myself of what you said on that broadcast. It really brought the reality of needing the Holy Spirit's illumination on this matter right now. He began to speak to me, so I just wanted to commend you for bringing us back to not the basics, but the foundational things that sometimes we can stray from when we get in this walk and we think we've got the hang of it. Sometimes we just forget to ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth and revelation on our minds.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that we sometimes let these things slip through our fingers because we're looking for complication.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's actually simpler.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Much simpler.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If we just stick to the order and stick to the process, protect the process, and let Him protect the promise.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think so. I also think that if He made it complicated, it would be us taking some of the glory. It has to be all Him and us cooperating.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It gets complicated when we try to protect the promise more than the process because it's like we go against something that we were designed to not do. We take a role that we weren't meant to fill.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Like I said before, it's all about us being human beings and Him being the doing. We're not called to be human doings. We were called to caretaker, not to take over.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We're beings that do, not doings that be.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: In saying that, I ask yourself this question, and anyone that's listening right now. If you have heard our teaching on the illumination through the candlesticks that were in the tabernacle, then you will ask yourself this question: do you prayerfully read over the scriptures? Do you ponder it?

Do you meditate on it? Do you chew it like a cud and then regurgitate it and ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate it to your mind, your heart, and your understanding? If you are at that place, then you can move into the next one, which is the Altar of Incense. That's where you go into that place, which is the piece of furniture—the fifth piece of furniture in the tabernacle—which was right in front of the Holy of Holies.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There was a veil right after it that just progressed into the most holy place where the Ark of the Covenant was. We've been on a journey of going through the tabernacle and its importance from the outer court to the holy place to the most holy place.

For the last couple of weeks, we have dived in and gone into the description and the prophetic significance of how Jesus fulfilled and is each piece of furniture. We're going to continue tonight into the next piece on our journey, which is the Altar of Incense.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It is known as the fifth piece of furniture. It's an altar, and it has some very interesting things that created in our lives a place before you go into the Holy of Holies. It's very simple. We need to have these experiences. We sometimes put them away, thinking that was in the Old Testament, but if it was written in the Old Testament, it's applicable for my life all the time.

I don't just do away with one to take on another. The Bible says clearly the Old Testament—or I don't know what they call it now—the First Testament is actually not to be done away with. It's to be taken and add the New Testament to fulfill it and therefore fulfill what God is trying to instruct us to live.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Just to clarify, we say First and Second Testament because "old" means something that doesn't apply anymore. If you are witnessing to a Jew, the First Testament and the Mosaic Law is everything that they have based their belief and their whole existence in God on, and rightly so.

We don't want to say Old Testament; we want to say First Testament and we want to say Second Testament because it's not an add-on. It's just a continuation. Jesus said, "I haven't come to abolish the law, but I've come to fulfill it." That word fulfill literally means to become the reality of. He's become the reality of the First Testament in the experiential living out in the Second Testament.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: In saying that, we're going to go into that place. We're going to leave where natural light was the first station and illuminated light was the second station. Before we enter into that place where only the light of God can make things glow—which is the light of God—the Shekinah glory.

We then will see, not by our own, but by God Himself revealing Himself. We must have this piece of furniture in our lives, and I'd like to explain why we need this piece of furniture because it was right before the veil to enter into the Holy of Holies. Why is there to be an opening up of that veil so that we can see into the Holy of Holies? We need to see in there before we enter in there.

When you do see in there, as you experience this—going from the mind, body, and soul, which is likened to the other two stations—now you're coming into a place where you will enter into your spirit. In saying that, I think we're going to come back, and when we come back, I'd like to take you further on this journey.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let's do that. Let's go to the break. Take a quick second just to recap and get ready to go on this journey into the Altar of Incense right before the veil.

Guest (Male): You're listening to First Love with Dr. Robyn and Dr. Nathan Kassas. 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: All right, Dr. Robyn, we're back from the break. Let's go straight into the Altar of Incense and its significance and spiritual meaning. Go for it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I said before, that piece of furniture will cause you not only to go in; first, you will lift the veil and see in there. When you go through to the Holy of Holies, you will see what? You would see golden horns in which, in the same level as the cherubim's wings in the Holy of Holies.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But we're not in there yet, right?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But we're not there yet. What is this piece of furniture going to do to prepare you to go into that wonderful place I just said beforehand? It's a place where those horns will lift you high and present us—present us before God with a full balance, a balance of emotions. In that place, you will see that as you come into that place, you will stand before God in full balance.

Before we even take that step, we look at this piece of furniture that's required. It's incense. It must burn all the time in your life. You must be a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. It must be a sweet-smelling fragrance and aroma in the nostrils of God so that He continually smells with His nostrils this sweet-smelling fragrance.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: If I could add here, too, on the Day of Atonement, the priest actually sprinkles the blood from the sin offering on the horns of this altar, on the Altar of Incense. But until that day comes, which was once a year, every day, coals are placed on the altar, which causes incense—a cloud of white smoke—to rise. This represents what you've said, Dr. Robyn: the praise of the saints and the prayers of the saints. God inhabits the praises of His people.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's kindled and rekindled every morning and every evening. It never went out. Now, what does that mean for you and me? That means we would need to have the sacrifice of praise—a continual sacrifice of praise on our lips before we could even be in that place. We need to be having that sweet-smelling fragrance going up to the Lord, which will lead us into that Holy of Holies place.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let me give a couple of scriptures here to back it up. Exodus 30:1–10: the Altar of Incense is placed directly before the veil. Psalm 141:2 says, "Let my prayer be set before you as incense." Revelation 8:3–4: the prayers of the saints ascending before God's throne as incense. Hebrews 9:3–4 is the veil before the most holy place.

Here's a little statement to tie this all together, what Dr. Robyn is saying: the Altar of Incense was not optional, decorative, or symbolic filler. It was the final internal alignment before entering the Presence.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We go from being in our mind, body, and soul to entering into a place in our spirit. You need to fulfill all these things so that we can be that sweet-smelling fragrance to the Lord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is key because you could not enter the Holy of Holies where we're going after this smelling like the world, thinking like the flesh, or praying from demand instead of devotion. This is where now you come in and you might have a stench; your mind might be right, your thinking might be right, but you still smell like outside. God can't inhale your scent if you smell like outside.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's why He gives you the chance here to visit this piece of furniture so the last thing that needs to be done is done. As we go to that Altar of Incense and we present this, it lifts us. It lifts us as we begin to continually praise the Lord. What do we become? We become worshippers. We get lifted and presented as we go right into that Holy of Holies place. But what is this piece of furniture asking us? Are we a worshipper?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is where I would say this is where the crisis communication ends because now you're not going in to be cleaned; you're not going in to be anything. You're going in literally to have transformed desire. Incense represents transformed desire.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: If we're asked this question, "Are we worshippers?" we have to look. We have to be truly worshiping Him for who He is, not for what He can do. Then we won't be grumbling, we won't be complaining, or as I would say in Australia, moaning about things all around us. We will see God in everything. The pure in heart see God everywhere.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Prayer here is not just a language in the Altar of Incense. Prayer is actually longing that has been refined. It's a heart that has been transformed to want more than an answer, but to want constant relationship with the answer. This is important because Jesus fulfills this as the Altar of Incense. He actually is the one whose desires were fully yielded to the Father in John 5:19. He's also the one whose prayers were shaped by obedience and not urgency in Luke 22:42.

The altar is there saying you can't cross into glory until your inner life is aligned and smells like Jesus to the Father.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Let's put that in balance because this piece of furniture balances. It's four horns and they are equal, and they lift us equally up before God. It says why? Because He loves our worship. He loves our praise. When we lift our hands and lift our eyes, lift our heart, it will take us immediately into His presence—immediately. We are able to come before Him and hear His voice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: What's interesting about praise and prayer and worship from a biological place to help people understand is this increases what's called HRV, heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is the variability rate that our heart beats, and that actually creates an electromagnetic field of the heart around our vital organs to pull them into its heart field.

Heart rate variability is a sign of good health because the greater heart rate variability that we have, the greater pull of the magnetic force of our organs into our hearts. The parasympathetic nervous system activates, which is the relaxed nervous system, not the fight or flight. Cortisol decreases, which is a stress hormone that brings on chronic disease and also infection, and puts the body in a constant state of having to fight. Cognitive clarity increases. Incense prayer produces heart coherence.

There's a saying, "Chaos cannot cross the veil." You can't be praying out of panic at the Altar of Incense. You're praying because your transformed desire has gone up before the Lord as a sweet-smelling aroma to make you want to become, not to get an answer.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Therefore, our mind, our soul, and our body has come to a place where we're ready to be totally balanced in our emotions because we're moving from that area to now the spirit. We're entering into a spiritual realm that is going to do it. God put this piece of furniture which represents total balance. You understand that? The same length, the same width, balancing—that piece of furniture balances us all the way round.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's interesting because Jesus didn't offer prayers; He became one. I think that's the challenge. We can't just say the prayer; we have to become the prayer. We have to become the incense and that intercession that never ends before the Holy of Holies and before the throne of God. Incense is the sound of a heart that doesn't need answers, but only wants relationship and His presence—nearness. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you," as James says.

I want to bring in some science here. It's interesting because incense is the olfactory nerve. It's smell, right? It's not sight, it's not sound, and it's not touch. Those senses are annihilated through this piece of furniture. They are left behind because they're back in with what you said—the natural light, the candlestick—and then also the washing, that's all touch and all the other experiences have touch and even taste with the table of showbread.

God leaves this one for the end, which is really prophetically significant because what it does is smell actually bypasses the brain's thalamus. Smell, what that means in a nutshell is, the thalamus is where we take an input of sensory input and we judge it. We perceive it. We have to give it meaning. If you touch my hand, my thalamus will apply meaning to that touch, but it can block the significance of the touch if I give a wrong judgment.

By God allowing smell to bypass the thalamus, He's allowing His sweet-smelling aroma to bypass what our head would interpret it as. Sometimes we can even interpret our own praise and worship and judge it, but it gets right to the heart of the matter when we get that praise that goes up before on the Altar of Incense. It bypasses the head and gets straight to the heart.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That, of course, is so important because as we have that balance and we're coming to that place where we're going to be worshiping—not in the soulish areas where the soul gets affected so much by the circumstances and situations around us because it's tied up with the mind and the will and the emotions of whatever's going on out there in the world.

When we come to the place where God is really balancing—how does He balance us? He doesn't balance us through correction and judgments; He balances through worship and praise.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's interesting, Dr. Robyn, before I throw to you for your final words. You couldn't put strange fire on the Altar of Incense. This represents that there has to be order before there is encounter. There has to be alignment before there is presence. Worship, as you've just said, brings that alignment. Over to you for your final words.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I can tell you that piece of furniture always will balance our emotions. It'll bring praising Him, worshiping Him. We will not be seesawing up and down all over the place. This will bring emotional balance to us and emotional stability into our lives. It is a place where you will meet with God. So I can just say to you, go on the journey again. I say it and will repeat it continually each week. Go on the journey. He created a piece of furniture to give you a vision of how to do this through balance, through incense, through praising and becoming a worshipper. These are all steps to moving into the Holy of Holies.

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 T-O-R-C-C dot 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.