First Love

Announcer: Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robyn Kassas and Dr. Nathan Kassas, where faith meets real life. In this week's 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 everyone, and welcome back to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas, and I am sitting with the wonderful Dr. Robyn Kassas, who is my mom as well as our senior minister. Dr. Robyn, how are you doing today?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I am enjoying the sun, I can tell you. It's good to know the sun doesn't have to come out tomorrow, it's out today.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Hallelujah. Yes, we are excited to move into the season of summer and for all that God's going to do with it. We've been on a very important topic talking about the humanity of Jesus, coming into the real, relevant, and relational. Dr. Robyn, you said a statement as we were preparing for this episode. You said real and relevant leads to relationship. Why don't you expound on that as we begin to dive into tonight's episode?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'd like first to hit us with a question. It's all about Jesus the man. When he was sitting around with his disciples, he wasn't always in teaching mode, and he wasn't always in counseling mode. If he did that, then he wasn't creating a relationship.

The fact is that they didn't know him; they had to get to know him and who he was. They had to learn through relationship. It had to be real, it had to be relevant, and then relationship would develop. So I ask myself this question: what sort of conversation was taking place with Jesus the man?

Not Jesus the God, but Jesus the man. I've come to the understanding that it's everyday communication and conversation. What's important about everyday communication and conversation is that's the first step to listening, because you hear what the Spirit is saying.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So what you're saying is the ability to learn to hear the Holy Spirit and the voice of God doesn't really come in those mountain-peak moments.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No, it doesn't. That's just the emphasis of what you've been doing in the everyday. That's maybe a showing of what's happening, an action of what's happening. When you are in that situation, then the Holy Spirit comes as the great counselor and you hear the counsel.

But we want to talk about how Jesus the man built a relationship with his disciples. It was through everyday forms of communication and conversation. That is so important because that will lead to where your relationship gets really built.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think it's important to understand, as we were talking in preparation for this episode, that when Jesus took off his deity, he took off the ability to be able to be tuned to that flow instantaneously. In every situation, from the moment he's awake to the moment he's asleep and in between, he has to willfully choose to tune to the Holy Spirit's flow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And he does. He has to because he doesn't have instant revelation. He goes and he receives that from his Father every day. When he does that, he then operates as that man and he walks that through through everyday communication and conversation.

What does that do? It teaches us to be a listener. When you listen, of course, you hear. But what stops that from happening is our opinion. Most of the conversations we have are about competitions with opinion.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There is this fallacy that we have in our human psychology: we think by contributing we are participating. What that means is I'm not a part of the conversation unless I'm saying something.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Unless I'm giving an opinion, an input. But input has to be asked for. You don't just give it because that's overbearing to people. It's very overpowering and overbearing, and Jesus never did that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Likened unto the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit doesn't do that. He is a gentleman; he waits for you to finish your thought before he introduces his thought. He doesn't interrupt the conversation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: This is building the whole time with his disciples how to have relationship. So that was two-way. The relationship wasn't just he was having it with them; they were having it with him. It went two ways.

They were getting to know one another, and everyday conversation is getting to know someone in conversation. Conversation is another thing here. It's not speaking; it's listening before you speak.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think that is the greatest participation you can engage in: really listening. Really listening to the Lord and listening to others. We buy that fallacy and that lie that unless I'm talking or unless I'm contributing, I'm not involved in it. It's a lie because the greatest contribution is to hear someone, to hear the Lord, and let it go in and not think about what you're going to say next or think about how I could own this conversation. Sometimes our participation becomes ownership.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: A lot of the time, our conversation negates true relationship because it's our opinion. I look at Jesus, I really do, and I don't see him operating this way at all.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: To tie it in with everything that we have been mentioning about the humanity of Jesus, this is where the humanity of Jesus becomes evident because there is a flow every day. I said this to our church last night: the Holy Spirit's flow is always there. It doesn't have to be created. It doesn't have to be conjured up. It's always there, but it takes that inner ear that you mentioned in the sermon last week to tune to that flow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You mentioned about screening the inner ear because it's the inner ear that's spiritual. I'd like to say one of the biggest things we need to screen is our own voice. We're so busy concerned about screening out the right thing and the wrong thing, but why does He say commit all of our conversation to Him?

Good thoughts, bad thoughts—He says commit them. Commit them to Him because sometimes our good thoughts are not good thoughts; they're our thoughts and they're very worldly and very fleshly. As I said, and as you said too, the Holy Spirit is speaking all the time.

All the time we can hear Him if we choose to hear Him. But you must tune out those other voices, and the biggest voice is your voice to contribute to something because it's not Holy Spirit-led, it's your opinion.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I'm realizing even as you're talking right now the Holy Spirit is talking to me saying, "Nathan, all the time your contribution robs my glory of landing truth because you subvert and you divert the attention by contributing." This is not a group therapy session where everybody gets to have their say and give their opinion.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it's not a debating either.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This has been eye-opening and ear-opening for me, what you're saying. It's really interesting, and I would like to ask you to continue to open this up because I'm learning, even as someone that's been trained in this. There's an experience and a knowledge of history with God that you bring to this that a textbook can't teach.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think it's over 40 years of experience and knowing the Holy Spirit through the hard knocks of the school of the Holy Spirit. I've learned not to fight the Holy Spirit and to surrender, because then you learn that you know nothing and are willing to learn everything.

That makes you a real student of the Holy Spirit. You're not a student when you're debating a conversation and bringing your opinion in because the Holy Spirit has no opinion. He's only God's will, God's way, and God's word.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And truth.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Truth. But that's the way God operates: word, will, and way.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think what you said is very important: you stop becoming a student when you stop learning. In everything, if we can enter the conversation, we can enter these moments of everyday living with God thinking we know, and the Lord has to consistently remind me of a saying that I like to adapt and I tell myself: play dumb, meaning remember you don't know.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The best one is to zip your lip. That's one of the best things we've learned through the Hebrew. Zippy the lippy. To learn, you have to be a student.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You can't be a teacher. You can't know the same information and learn at the same time.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Can you just imagine going to work and telling the boss, "I know better than you do"? But here's the key: I believe this will add to the conversation, not hinder it, because we have to be careful what we contribute. I have to submit that to the Holy Spirit because right now I could take it on a completely different flow.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And what would happen in that is the fruit of it would take it one way or the other. It would end up causing the person to shut down completely and stop the flow of relationship or to survive and fight to have a say. None of those are of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: By surrendering, what I'm asking the Lord is if this is a contribution of worth. I believe it is. Sometimes when we contribute and we counter that flow, we actually add more resistance to the flow that's already in the room because, again, we buy into the lie that our participation means our contribution. But the Lord is teaching me that not every moment requires your contribution; it just requires your attention.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It requires your listening. Those are two different things: attention and contribution. And they're both forms of communication.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You taught this in Abiding and I've taught it in Cornerstone, but I'd like to come out of Proverbs 22:17. Solomon here is giving sayings of the wise and he says, "Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise." Then he takes it a step further and he says, "Don't just hear it, apply your heart to my knowledge."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Then here's something: when you're listening, a very, very good thing you can do is listen by mulling things over, regurgitating what you just swallowed, mulling it over again, regurgitating again until it is fully digested.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Which is literally what he says in verse 18. He says, "For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's how you keep it within you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Then he says, "And then let them all be fixed upon your lips." Here's the key: you'll know you've listened if what has been heard changes what you say.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And bears the fruit of the conversation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Then he finishes by saying, "so that your trust may be in the Lord."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, because his ways are not our ways. They are not our ways; they're higher. But Jesus had to go to his Father and spend time in fellowship with his Father to hear the way to listen to what the Spirit is saying. It was not automatic.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think something important that we have to bring to our listeners is someone could say, "If I don't understand, shouldn't I ask a question? Shouldn't I contribute?" But here's the key: relationship always determines your level of understanding. Because I'm in great relationship with you, sometimes you can say something and I don't need you to explain it because we're on that same frequency.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: This is what I was sharing, but just before I do, let me use the example of Jesus on the cross. Did he ask questions of his Father? Or was he listening by zipping his lip? He just remained silent. He was silent. Did he speak? Only when he had something to contribute.

As to mulling things over, this is part of the way you listen. You take it in, you chew it, then you swallow it, and then you bring it back up again. And you might not say a word. You might be called just to pray and not say a word.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's so powerful what you just said, Dr. Robyn, because the only time he opens his mouth and he says, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?" is to fulfill scripture of Psalm 22.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that was to let those that were standing around who couldn't hear what the Spirit was saying hear it loud and clear: prophecy being fulfilled.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: To the listeners that don't understand the Hebraic correlation here, the teaching of the time from the scribes and the Pharisees was if you were going to be the Messiah, you had to have quoted Psalm 22.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's the one.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So by them doing what they thought they would do, saying, "He can't even save himself," he could have talked in the human way—"I don't need to be here"—he could have opened his mouth on so many things. But he opened it twice: when he turned to the thief and he said, "Today you're with me in paradise," that was a moment that the flow of the Holy Spirit was leading to and we all benefit from it. Then when he says, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" he's not literally saying you forsaken me; he's quoting the scripture that qualifies him as Messiah. And they didn't have that inner ear to hear it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But because they followed after the Holy Spirit, Jesus heard the Holy Spirit speak. He only spoke what the Holy Spirit had told him to speak. He had a full conversation with the Holy Spirit. He knew he could have called down angels right there on the cross and the Father would have come and sent the angels, but he came to fulfill the will of God.

He did it through word and deed. We negate our conversations that we have daily by not listening. That's the way we conversation: listen. So God can put something in you. Do you get to the point where you've been with the Lord for so long and you've been listening to Him for so long you become aware of His thoughts because they become your thoughts and your thoughts become His thoughts? That isn't done overnight.

Most of the time, the conversation that we have because we're not listening, we're only waiting to say something back, then most of them fall on rocky ground, choked by the weeds of the world. It never lands. Our hearts are hard. This is not the way the Holy Spirit wants us to have relationship. He wants us to be a bending reed that can be moved by His wind. I like that: a bending reed that can be moved by His wind. And when you're not ready to bend, you can't be moved.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So why don't you quickly tell me something about the mind and how this all operates because I've told you mine?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's brilliant. I love that. I'm going to be imagining that in the conversations that I have from this moment: am I being a bending reed right now? Is there a wind that I'm bending to, or am I standing staunch trying to create my own flow?

I could add just a couple of things that science and psychology do kind of validate what we're saying. What we're talking about, in an essential way, is conversational narcissism. What that means is we tend to think that our knowledge and our experience or our contribution can validate the conversation more, can bring more worth to it.

That goes back to what I said: it's tied to the belief that my contribution is my participation. But God is trying to bring us to this moment because remember seven years of plenty, but then seven years of famine. And what's the famine? The word of the Lord.

You have to be at this level of accountability now where when God speaks, it's not common. I realize that resistance when God speaks or familiarity makes His voice common. I don't want His voice to become common in my conversation. I don't want to hear His voice on the same level that I hear my own intellect.

I want when He speaks—like we were singing a song last night and I felt from the Spirit as I was leading our team in worship to keep regurgitating that: "You have spoken and I know that it is so." The Lord just dropped in my spirit, "I have spoken. Let that land. Don't be so quick to reply. Let it land that I have spoken." Because when He spoke to Moses in the burning bush, it landed. Moses trembled. Sometimes I wish that we could experience that old patriarchal kind of concept of God speaking, because when God spoke, they knew God had spoken.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And also when we think about this and you mentioned about the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine of the word of God, this is the most foolish thing we do: we don't listen while we have the opportunity to hear what the Spirit is saying. What are we going to wait till the famine is in the land? That's the most foolish thing you can do.

The other thing I said about a bending reed being moved by the wind of the Holy Spirit, that's much more safer than something that stands strong they think and just needs a good hurricane to knock it over. We've experienced that. We have structures on our property that stand quite staunch and strong, but all it takes is a wind. We have big winds and we're concerned about these big pillars: will they withstand the wind? We can't have a bending pillar, but we can be the bending pillar.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: One more scientific thing that I'd like to add here is that our brain, because of a fallen nature, unfortunately this took place when Eve and Adam sinned, we got programmed to what we call a selective attention bias. What that means is thousands of stimuli exist in the brain every second, but only a few are consciously noticed.

The information is not absent; it's the attention isn't turned on. How I can counter that is what I choose to give significance turns the stimuli on. If I judge the conversation not worthy of significance because I have resisted the flow of the Holy Spirit, then I won't hear because I won't turn on that stimuli as something to attach significance to. So with all that being said, I'm going to throw it to you for your final words because this is a powerful episode and I'm going to relisten to it over and over again.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So am I. I want to think about when Jesus was talking to his disciples. Would they have had to have gone through everything they went through? Even Peter? Maybe not. Maybe Peter chose to have an opinion and not listen. Very interesting to think about it.

It's funny how we think about the conversation. Jesus used the conversation in everyday language. Do you know your brain has to have a new conversation every day to wash over and give you a fresh anointing? That's how important it is for the everyday conversation to be a listener.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Exactly like you said, we don't give weight to that everyday conversation. That's where the relationship is built.

Announcer: 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.