First Love

Dr. Nathan Kassas: All righty, Dr. Robyn, we are back. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas and I have with me Dr. Robyn Kassas.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Hi, I'm here.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And this is First Love on Friday, our first Friday, Dr. Robyn. We have been going through the gate series and the importance of the conversations. Different gates are different conversations and how they work and play out in our relationship with the Lord.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we continue to say it's a book of conversations, the Bible.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It sure is. I love that. A book of conversations. I never thought I would hear the Bible explained like that, but what a powerful way. And today we're going to be talking about the next part of following in line with Peter's transition and the power of getting a new mind through a very important tool called hearing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, the biology of hearing Jesus. We're going to talk about that today.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So powerful. In our last episode, we actually got to mention about Peter's call from Jesus and how Jesus said, "I will make you." And how this began a work that Jesus was initiating and not Peter.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Our key statement tonight is going to be: God changes identity before he changes behavior.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And it's very important. Jesus wasn't asking Peter here to improve his fishing. He was actually saying, "I'm going to form a disciple. I'm going beyond the fisherman, I'm forming a disciple." So follow me is an invitation to surrender the old patterns that have previously defined you. God is saying, "I want you to come after me, imitate me." I said that disciple literally means to imitate someone else's life as if it were your own. When you become a disciple of someone, you imitate their every move, their every thought because you're saying, "Right, I want my life to look like that life." And so when Jesus says, "And I will make you fishers of men," and he's saying, "I'm going to make you my disciple," he's saying, "Your life up to this point has fed you, but it can't feed you any longer."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think Jesus is saying there that he's getting it through to Peter that there's something going to happen to renew him. And his mind will become renewed through this, not his behavior, but his mind. And that will lead to his identity.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And I think that's so important, as someone who has been trained in psychology and counseling. When we change behavior, if we don't change the belief around the behavior, the identity around the behavior, the root reason around the behavior, the behavior can change back.

We see this all the time. I see this in counseling, I see this in psychology, we actually see this in addicts. Until I can help an addict see why they're addicted and get a new belief system, I actually can't expect their behavior to fully and permanently transform. I might see what we call the honeymoon period where someone changes behavior, but our brains, unfortunately, we have to practice something 21 days, three times in a row. So that's 21-day cycles, three sets of those cycles in order for an actual permanent change to take place.

So it's not enough for me to say, "Yeah, I'm changing. I was good this week," because neuroscience perspective says that we are learning from what we repeat. We are constantly attending to, believing, practicing, and experiencing things, and that is what we repeat and that is how our brain's neuro-wiring is formed.

Everyone knows this term, it's the biggest term on YouTube at the moment, it's called neuroplasticity. So when we repeatedly choose the faith over the fear and we repeatedly choose obedience over impulse, it's not that it's instantaneous, but it's that every time we choose it, the impulse to choose the other gets lesser and lesser.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So when we choose to have truth rather than emotions, because that would be something to bring attention to with identity, I can tell you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's it. And so the scripture we're coming from as a basis here is Matthew 4:19, where Jesus calls Peter and says, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." And then we also want to come out of a very important and quoted scripture here, Romans 12:2. And I'll bring that out a little bit later after the break.

But this is so important because our brain takes time to transform. Instantaneous behavior change is not permanent transformation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Now let me stop you there. This is so important because when he's talking about renewing the mind, people have got the idea that you can put on Christ and your mind gets renewed automatically.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's I would say you put on the potential. All things are becoming new. And that means every day I have the potential to step into 100% of the becoming from when I wake to when I sleep. God has made a way, but I have to activate that in my faith and in my obedience with how I subject my thoughts to the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So your mind has to work every day and it doesn't just renew. And these mercies that we receive, they happen over and over again. So that's not automatic either. And that's not something that just happens and now it's all finished.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Exactly. Peter is going to have to continually activate new thinking in order to disassociate from his old life. Just because Jesus has said, "Come follow me," Peter automatically did not become a fisher of men. But we do think that's what happens. We think because we get the call, everything else falls away. But it is a progression.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And what goes from being a fisher of fish to a fisher of men? That's a process.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My favorite word, it is a process. So the brain, like I said, just to encourage someone out there before we actually go into our break today. You might be doing one thing, one thing only. You might have failed in all the other 99 things, but you might be doing one thing that's different than how you've done it.

If you can keep doing that one thing—now let me put it into actually a quantification—if you can keep doing that one thing for 21 days three times, you will actually change the wiring of your brain. You will change your brain's ability to choose the old thing first and you will now incline it to gravitate towards the new thing that you've chosen.

And we call it, it's like macronutrients. When you take food, it gets broken down into macronutrients. So I call this macro munching. You can't take when you look at change and you look at transformation as one full-on bite, the power of that overwhelms you. You get caught in the anxiety of, "Well, if I can't bite the whole thing all at once," and the fear of the future actually paralyzes you to make the small minute change.

Well, it's impossible to bite the whole thing at once. So it's called micro-formation steps. Munching is micro-formation. So today, practically, even though I know—I'm just going to put it into a hypothetical—even though I know that God is working on my heart and my emotions to be softer as a parent and to have more love in my tone, I can't change all of that at once.

So I ask the Holy Spirit, "Where's that one thing that I can macro munch today?" So I make sure he says to me, "Okay, well the way you communicate with your son Ezekiel in the morning. Don't awaken with expectation, awaken with love. Make sure you ask him how his day is." So if I can implement that one thing for 21 days, three times, three sets, there's going to be change. And then that change will lead to other changes because my brain goes, "Wow, I can do this." I'm seeing the results and it takes note and it starts recruiting more neurons.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: How important that is for Christianity. It's so powerful. Come back.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: All righty, Dr. Robyn, we're back after the break. And we were talking about this macro munching.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and we didn't have any munchie.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No. And I just want to again, the scientist and the functional medicine practitioner in me comes forward. This is so important because when you take a full bite out of something and you don't macro munch, let's put it into a biological perspective.

If I'm biting a full-on steak and I only chew it maybe two to five times and then I swallow it and I expect it to nourish my body, I haven't done the necessary work to break it down into its smallest particles. When we add through chewing, we add saliva to our food. And so the more chewing, God has created this amazing mechanism that when we chew, we add more saliva, it actually releases amylase which actually breaks down these particles of food and helps us to absorb them as we digest them into our digestive tract.

So digestion doesn't begin with the stomach, it begins with the mouth, mastication. So the more people tell you chew your food, the more you chew on something over and over, the more you take that's big bite-sized of change and you break it into small incremental steps, the more you will actually accomplish that change. You will not accomplish it if you try to take all the steak at once.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Which is impossible. Try and put a whole steak in your mouth, you cannot do that. I can guarantee you that. I've tried it, it don't work. You wouldn't even try it, it would be impossible.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But this now let's bring it into what we're talking about with Peter and this Matthew 4 passage. The Lord is saying, "Peter, I'm going to make you a fisher of men," but you're going to have to bit by bit by bit walk with me, observe, learn from me, abide with me. Because you can't get this overnight.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's right. And I'm going to change your behavior. That's the most important thing because that will bring identity for you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And again, one thing that we see if I was doing a case study as I've done on Jacob with Peter, because Peter didn't take the time to macro munch.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I already said that. I said that one time. I said Peter would not have had to go through all of those tests that he was going through because he was next to Jesus. And if he didn't listen, that's what he didn't do. And so therefore he had to learn the hard way. And we do the same.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We do. And it's because we get like you said in the previous episode, this impetuous stand in life where we want it now. Everything in life right now is so instantaneous. You can get on your phone, you can order something, it will be here tomorrow. It's the scrolling generation. We are the scrolling generation. Our expectancy, the expectancy of the previous generation is a lot less than this generation today. We click a button, we want to see results the moment we click a button. We've been conditioned into that.

So that's also playing into the fact of how we approach this. We expect change to be button-pressed, instantaneous. "Let me quote the scripture, let me apply it, and that's it, it's done." But that doesn't bring heart transformation. Heart transformation can only come in spending time in the presence of the Lord.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The most important thing we do is spend time with the Lord.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. And that's what Peter was doing. See, Peter's transformation actually began not when Jesus sat down and told him a parable. It began when Peter started spending time in his presence. Because everything that Jesus was was rubbing off on Peter, challenging the way he thought.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And he spent so much time. He was one of the ones that spent so much time. But it wasn't going in from his behavior.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No. And that's something that we have to understand as the brain and the nervous system are created by the unique design of God, your nervous system has to practice. It doesn't happen instantaneously. You have to practice a bad thought just like you have to practice a good thought. But the key is we don't mind practicing the bad thoughts. We practice them quite easily over and over. We rehearse the curse in our heads.

So if fear is repeatedly rehearsed, then fearful responses are going to be produced in the nervous system and they become easier to trigger throughout the day. If avoidance is repeatedly rehearsed and practiced, then avoidance will become habitual. If faith is practiced, it will become even more default than fear.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. And he, Peter, he always panicked in storms, always. But yet he slept very peacefully in prison.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Oh, but isn't it funny how that's after? After he's gone through the confrontation of taking attention to what Jesus was trying to take attention to in him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: After when his identity changed and his behavior followed through.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This new identity that God is forming, it doesn't come all at once.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we said that, didn't we?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I want to encourage someone because you might have been walking with the Lord for 30 plus years, 50 plus years. But guess what? He said to the children of Israel, bit by bit I will drive them out before you because if I do it all at once, they will overwhelm you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And not only that, if you take anything all at once, you can't handle it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. So that 30 years Christian or that 50 years Christian, yes, you've had identity up to a point, but you've had to practice. You've had to spend time in the presence of the Lord walking that journey with him. And now you're at the next macro munch.

I call it macro munch even though it's really micro munch, but I tie it in with macronutrients. When you eat and you munch, your body begins to break down the food into those three classes of macronutrients: fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. So I know someone would say, "Well, macro actually means bigger perspective," but I'm talking about macro as in a macronutrient.

So it's not that you can't eat and bite full. Like when you go to a conference, you take a big bite, right?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But you get indigestion sometimes when you take a big bite.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There are a lot of Christians with indigestion, totally. But it's your every Sunday word from your preacher.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's the one that really counts when you hear it from your home church.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: See, the conference gives you the taste.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, but the church gives you the bite.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: My God. And the church and the discipleship of the church breaks it down into those three macronutrient categories and helps you to absorb it into your system. You could have a great taste but never absorb.

And I think there are a lot of us that we go to these conferences. Nothing wrong with that, but the problem is the taste doesn't satisfy because we're not absorbing. How does that change your life after the event is over?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, we've seen it happen over and over again. How many people followed Jesus? Over 100 and only 12 lasted, and one of them betrayed him. So there it is. We've answered that question really quickly.

And I want to say just a key statement here: that the greatest miracle wasn't merely around Peter. It eventually happened within Peter, and then he was a different person.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And this kind of ties in, Dr. Robyn, to Romans 12:2: be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind daily. And we quote that one, but then we don't quote 12:3: and then you will be able to test what is that perfect, acceptable will of God.

And I don't want to go into another tangent, but this is so important. You can't know the will until you've got a new mind. See, look at that progression.