First Love

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well everyone, we are back. It is now Tuesday. We had a very interesting session yesterday. Dr. Robyn, very interesting subject. And I think this subject is something that will challenge us because the more we learn about our brain, the more we will understand what the word is saying and how to do it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm thinking really seriously about what you said about the schema being like a blueprint. And I agree with that. Taking a blueprint of the world and putting it on your mind and thinking that God is pleased with that, that he'll work through that, that he'll move through that. He can't because it was not his idea.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Oh my Lord. Well, if you don't know who we are, I need to introduce ourselves because that was so powerful, Dr. Robyn. You are Dr. Robyn Kassas and I am Dr. Nathan Kassas, and you have just blown us out of the water with that introduction.

I think that is so important. I am a part of the Christian psychological community, and I want to say it is a really big disservice that Christians are taught to remove but we're never taught to renew. And I wouldn't say never. Let me rephrase. We are not taught as much to renew as we are to remove.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's a really sad situation that the world is going further than we are.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: They are. They're offering modalities and methods and different types of treatment that focus on the mind's renewal, and they don't focus on the negative. See, Christians are flesh detectors, not the Holy Spirit.

And when we focus on the flesh, what you focus on, you end up becoming. You become flesh. So unfortunately, because our minds are so focused on the "put off," we never "put on."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's where we need to come into this about the old gate, or even go beyond the old to the ancient. This is an ancient truth. And Paul spoke about this, and he was talking about the renewal of the mind. And the renewal of the mind is that you put on, not take off first. Put on. Let God put it on you as he takes it off you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's a dual process. And this is again tied in a little bit theologically here. When Jesus came, he had to take off his deity. But when he rose again, he didn't stay stripped. The Lord crowned him and exalted him in Philippians 2 as the name above all other names where princes and powers, dominions, rulers, authorities, all bow down to the name.

So he took off and this is again implicated in the Old Testament, first testament, when the priests would go in on the Day of Atonement, he would have to take off his priestly robes and he would have to show his undergarments. And that was a prophetic sign of Jesus the High Priest coming to take off his deity and come to earth and be that man that walked among us.

But here's the key: he doesn't stay unclothed. The priest puts on the priestly garments of blue, purple, scarlet, gold, and he dresses in royalty. And this is where I feel the Holy Spirit really has called us to educate the body of Christ. We're not telling you just to put off; we are leading you through how to put Him on.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I've got to say this. It's like this is a real answer because people don't know how to do it. And so if we can give principles here on how to do it and what it achieves and then give examples of scripture that shows different men in the Bible that got the message.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's it. And so if I could just encourage someone, and even as I'm saying it, I'm encouraging myself in the spirit. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. That's what we've got to do.

But I think God is wanting to pull our focus. We've become so sin-focused that we've become less Him-focused. And when I become more Him-focused, I become less sin-focused. So if I wake up every day thinking about what I'm going to do wrong or what I have to try to not do today, I'm going to end up doing it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it's better just to wake up and be in Him. Not even thinking of Him; be in Him because we're talking about abiding in Christ here and then letting Him be in us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And I've found when I've worked with clients and patients, if I focus on what they're not doing and try to correct their behavior from that purpose point, once they fall or once they relapse, the depression is so overwhelming that they can't move through the journey to change.

But if I keep encouraging them, "Okay, well let's not focus on what you haven't accomplished. Let's focus on that little micro/macro victory of today." You know, okay, you didn't fully overcome in this area, but you stopped cursing. You stopped swearing for 24 hours. These are just practical examples. You stopped biting your nails today. Let's look at that. You might not have overcome the thing you wanted to overcome, but we have to take it step by step, bit by bit.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's always step by step. Look, there's a word that I want to add in here called recognize. And I believe that ties in with renewal. Not replace. Not in this situation. We can recognize what is being said, what's happening with our brain, the schema that's working as a blueprint in our brain. And we can recognize it, then we can work with the Holy Spirit to have renewal.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow, so powerful. This is an Ephesians 4:22 dynamic. You can never have "put off" without "put on." If you put off, you leave it empty. That's where the enemy comes in and he plays, and seven times worse because a space that is not committed to the spirit becomes a space that is committed to something else. Another.

So we have to really bring us back to the ancient, the lasting, enduring word. This is not something new. This has been preached since even after Adam and Eve sinned. It was there in the Torah, in the Tanakh, in the law of Moses. This was all there. It was hidden, concealed, but in the new revealed. But this is not a brand-new revelation. We had the greatest revelation in front of us and that's Jesus Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think what Paul said about the mysteries of God, they were in his hands and they weren't revealed. But now he's chosen to put them in man's hands, his children, and we can have it revealed now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so just before we go to the break, I just want to quickly recap if you didn't hear the previous episode. We're talking about the mental idea and the mental framework called schemas, S-C-H-E-M-A-S. And what that represents is an internal interpretation that I develop that goes with me throughout life.

So a quick example: I try to call someone and I'm trying to see how they're doing, but they're not answering the phone. So my brain goes into these schemas. It develops interpretation. "Well maybe they're deliberately avoiding me. Maybe they don't want to take my call. Maybe they're upset over something I said and they don't want to speak to me."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And then the fear sets in. Accusation sets in, judgment sets in. All these reference points start firing in the brain, which fires the physiology, which fires me to do something in order to either still the prediction or fulfill the prediction.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And we'll get into that in the future. But I think it's important just to quickly say: the schema is interpretation about what could happen or what should happen. And if you're really honest, you're going via a worldly blueprint in that schema. So Dr. Robyn, we'll go to a break and then we'll come back and we'll dive in even deeper.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, let's do that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: All right guys, we are back. And wow, Dr. Robyn, again, these intros are just powerful. I could listen to them all day long. So we're talking about schemas. And I kind of just want to quickly go a little bit left of center here because when we talk about schemas, you brought up a very powerful scripture that I think we need to read out that really aligns with this. And it's found in Isaiah where it talks about your ways are not my ways. So Isaiah 55: "Your thoughts are not my thoughts."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Not mine higher, deeper, wider.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So what does that mean in a literal sense? God is saying, let me break it down: "You can't fit me in your framework." God's got one blueprint on his mind, an original plan. You can't fit me in your framework because if you try to go as high as I go, I go higher than you go.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's why you let me go high in you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. And your reference point is always going to limit who I am because you're outside of who I am, in me in Christ, but you've got my nature. But I want to point this out too: with the schema, it's very important because the schema will always develop an interpretation first. And then that interpretation (let's go to the next stage) will always develop a prediction. And so this prediction talks in two ways, and we're going to dive into this deep: what could happen and what should happen.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And what will happen. Well, that's the rhema. But when fear becomes your prophet, control becomes your strategy.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. Say that again.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I said when fear becomes your prophet, control becomes your strategy.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And fear is control dressed up in your clothes. I wrote that in a song. Fear is just control dressed up in my own clothes because what you fear, you're really trying to control.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so when you go past the word schema and you use blueprint or you use stencil, but I like blueprint because it's something he put in you. But you have to come back to it. You have to come back to the original blueprint, the original stencil, the original schema.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, thank you for saying that. There is a good schema that God has put in us. These are good schemas. But you've got to come back to it, so you've got to let the other one go. You've got to uncover it again. It's laying dormant beneath these layers of worldly blueprint. We think worldly blueprints can predict kingdom outcomes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we think that we can use schemas to have our predictions as Christians.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. I've done this so many times and called it prophetic.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Called it prophetic, but it's really pathetic.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So let's dive into a little bit more here. So when the brain begins to predict, it will do something next: it will look for evidence. So once a schema becomes established, several psychological processes can reinforce it. One is confirmation bias.

This is an important thing: we tend to notice and only give weight to information that is already consistent with what we believe. So only what we believe to be true will we allow to have significance. Tying into that, what we give significance, we end up actually sealing in our minds. Another is attention bias. Emotionally significant or threatening information can capture attention disproportionately. So imagine the schema: the schema says nobody respects me. But yet 20 people that day come and affirm you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But you don't see that. You see the schema.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. You don't recognize that. And one person maybe in the day comes and says a disrespectful word, but because you're living via that schema, it reinforces: "Everybody is disrespecting me."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's the way it works.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is how it works. So like I said, one person walks past without acknowledging you. Which interaction will dominate your attention? Is it the one that fits the schema which says, "See, I told you, no one respects you"?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Can I say that a schema is something sometimes that protects? You can have your schema protected. We protect our schemas, our very behavior, and prevent the schema from being disproven.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. We don't like when the schema is disproven and when we're wrong. Because that's an interrupting argument. And that interrupting argument is literally breaking apart your developed schema over the years that you've put into it.

That's your stinking thinking. Do not be conformed, but be ye transformed. So transformation means something's got to go into a cocoon and come out different. It's like a snake shedding its skin. The snake doesn't shed its identity, but it sheds the stage that it was at. And we have to really point this out.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So again, just giving you a little bit more background: like you said, that person comes and they say a disrespectful word and then the schema reinforces: "See, I told you, nobody respects you." So it's a self-reinforcing loop.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it also manufactures evidence for the lie you're already believing.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So here the truth is: you are not merely seeing what happened; you're seeing what your schema only permits you to see. So you're only seeing what this blueprint is allowing you to see. In reality, you're not seeing the full picture. It's not blind-sided; it's actually chosen by choice. But it is blind-sided in the way that you've given so much significance to this schema that it has narrowed your vision in an ungodly way.

Now another thing here it says with the old gate, let's tie it in there. So schemas can also interpret scripture. Am I interpreting scripture through my history, or am I allowing scripture to reinterpret my history? Let me say that again: Am I interpreting scripture through my history? Am I going to the reference point of my history saying, "Well, this is what God is saying through his word"? Or am I letting what God is saying through his word reinterpret how I remember my history?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think so. And I think the law can interpret the schema long enough for God to confront the schema underneath it. It looks like the law can bring it to the surface, and God can confront the schema like an ancient thing underneath it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So true. The schema is a hidden architecture behind something else that we're going to bring out very soon. But evidence that is gathered by a wounded lens can still testify to a lie. It predicts something and makes it look like it's a prophetic thing. See, gathering evidence is not enough. You've got to gather it through the right lens. Because if you look through a wounded lens, then the evidence that you gather will be full of lies.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's very important for someone who's wondering, "How do I go about this?" You're looking through the wrong lens.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And this is something that has to go. The ancient truth has to always overpower the lens that we're looking through. Because some days we look through the lens of woundedness. Some days we look through the lens of healing. And sometimes we actually look through the lens of anger and blaming God. I've done that many times too, and I'm getting free from these schemas. Because schemas lead to scheming.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But Dr. Robyn, there's hope, right? Because we can learn to transition from schemas to rhemas. And that's where you come in.