First Love

Guest (Female): 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 everybody and welcome to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas, and I am privileged to have sitting across from me Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, how are you today?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm feeling wonderful today.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow, that's awesome to hear. And we are excited to have you joining us again for another amazing broadcast of First Love. Dr. Robyn, we've been on a very important process and journey to bring us to this turning point. Actually, I should say tipping point.

Turning has so many connotations at the moment. It's not the one to use. So if you're listening for the first time, or if you've been following along the series of the previous weeks, we've been unraveling and unpacking God's story and going through each of the elements of God's story and what that means in our life. We've done the T of tension, the T of timing, the T of trauma, the T of trust, and the R of rest.

But I think we've come to the most critical and pivotal moment that we've been building up to, and that is transformation. Tonight, we've actually called this "The Tipping Point: Transformation is Not Just a Process, It's a Person." This comes off the back of Dr. Robyn beginning to reveal her heart to me in preparation for this episode about how we always get caught in the process. We cannot let the process be primary to what we cling to because transformation has a face, and that face is Jesus.

So why don't you share, Dr. Robyn, what your heart was to bring out to the people tonight on this episode, and then I'll interject where I know God wants me to.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, I've got quite a few things that I spoke to you about before we even started this. In the human experience, everyone has to come to a place where they realize that they have a deficit with part of the Godhead. Each person has to face this. I had to face this myself because of life and what life dealt with me, the emotions, the rejection, and many things that most people don't face.

I had to come to a place where, as I know God is sovereign and I know God is Creator, I know Him in many, many roles, but I had to know Him as a Father. Now, that is the one that the Lord is working on with me, the Holy Spirit. That's the one He's working on. And that's me. I know Jesus. I know Jesus, and I know all authority is given in His name by the Father.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: When you realize that, that's the key to walking in that authority.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You don't walk in that authority in God's role because He gave it to His Son. And His Son gave it to us through allowing the Holy Spirit to live in us. That's the authority. But you see, most people have a good role in their life with the sovereignty of God. Most people have a great role with God the Holy Spirit. They don't have a problem with that. But when it comes to the name of Jesus, that all authority is given and everything in every way is in the name of Jesus, they can't link that in their life.

So they revert back to "Father God, Father God, Father God."

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You hear it when they pray. It's an American thing, it really is.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: All the time. And then "Oh, Holy Spirit," it comes this way. But they have to see that God loves Jesus, and God gave Him the right to have the authority to exercise God's will in a person's life.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So you're essentially saying we're talking about the plan of God in this story of His, but we cannot connect with the plan until we have connection with the man. When you go to see a movie, you have a leading role and you have supporting roles. But here's the key: if you don't connect with that leading role, you won't believe the story.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's the only way to come back to God's first love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It is to connect with His first love, which is His Son as well as us. Because in reconciling Himself to the world, that word "reconcile" is to exchange equal value. Through His Son, the scripture says, He was reconciling us back to the Father. So we are valued because of how much He values Jesus.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's the one. And we were already made in the image of God, so we can't be made in the image of God again. But to be transformed, we have to allow God to make us in the image of His Son, Jesus.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Here's the statement that I've got pertaining to that. Here's the tension many believers live in. We were already created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). So transformation is not about becoming divine; it is about becoming formed. Who are we becoming formed into? Not by becoming formed into another version of God, because we can't. We're becoming formed into Jesus, the image.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Because if He sees Jesus in you, He will just love everything He sees in you because He loves His Son.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Colossians 1:15 says, "He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God." So by looking at the one who lived the human experience to its full extent but lived it perfectly, that is the greatest visual aid that I need to have in life to look to who I need to be transformed into.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: We have to be transformed into His image. It's a person. It's not a process. No, it's not.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I mean, it is a process, but the end result is we're becoming a person, not a process. How do we get to this place? Realizing it's Christ Jesus in us, by the Holy Spirit, that makes us transform.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Again, before we go to the break, in the first testament, it was outside of them. He wasn't in them; He came upon them. But now He lives in them. And that was the whole purpose: to bring us to the place where breath was not even close enough. He had to be in us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So that we could be like Him, He has to be in us.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we have to realize God is the authority. He gave it to Jesus, His Son. And I'm telling you, Jesus gives it to us in His name. It's transferred. Do you understand? And so all the things we do, if we can do it in His name living in us, we can be available for His ability.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I'm going to put this out before we go to the break. Part of the reason why we aren't transforming is because we're trying to transform in our name, not His name. Transformation can only stick when you're doing it in the name of Jesus. Let's go to a break.

Guest (Female): 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: Well, what a powerhouse first session. It was such an important session that I think is going to revolutionize the believers and the non-believers listening.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that when we don't recognize Jesus and we recognize God, we're very religious.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Because God with religion attached is a system.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And a formula.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But Jesus is a person. And this is the thing that we have the hardest time connecting with. We always want to skip Jesus "fully man." We don't mind Him "fully God."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No, it's got to be this man that you meet that will transform your life by the power of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit will transform you into that man's image if you allow Him to be introduced to you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This brings out one of my favorite scriptures where I can add some science here. 2 Corinthians 3:18: "We all, with unveiled face, as if looking in a mirror, behold Him and are being transformed from glory to glory as we behold Him." So the key here is, first scripturally, we're not looking into a new version of us. We're looking into Him. And the more I look into Him, the more I behold Him, the more I am transformed. So He is the transforming power: His person. Not my obedience.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And not God's image.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Not God's image, and not even the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is what causes us to look into Him. But He is the one that looks back into us and transforms us as more of His image. I think that sometimes along the transformation process, we get a formula. We say, "Okay, process over promise. As long as I keep process over promise, I'm being transformed."

But God will never allow you to formulize a relationship with Him. So I've got to come back to: no, transformation is not just a process; it's a person. And I'm looking into that person. By looking into Him, I'm being transformed.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that this is God's story. Introducing His Son into your life is God's story because it is the way He chose it to be.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: The greatest quest of Jesus was to introduce us to the Father. But the greatest quest of the Father is to introduce us to Jesus. That's why it's real love, because they're both always promoting the other.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, and the Holy Spirit's the greatest agent to promote them both.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I'm telling you, we did a portal on our other podcast about the power of the Holy Spirit and His role, and you need to go listen to that. But let's talk some science. The human brain learns through modeling, mirroring, and what we call relational attachment. So why Jesus is necessary through psychology, physiology, and neuroscience? We've taught this many times: we become what we behold.

There are certain actual neurons in our brain called mirror neurons. These neurons fire when we act, but they also fire when we observe someone else and then reinterpret what that person has done in ourselves. A physical example here is when I was teaching Ariel to eat for the first time. She's my little girl, two years old. As a baby, she doesn't know how to pick up a spoon and put it in her mouth.

I can tell her the right thing to do: "Arie, you need to pick the spoon up and you need to put it in your mouth." But until she sees me do it, those mirror neurons don't fire. They instantly fire when she observes me do it, succeed at it, and then her brain says, "Ah, this is how I can do it."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: You're her mentor.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So we have that mirror neuron system in us. Transformation requires a visible model. You cannot do it without a visible model to behold, a lived example, and a relational anchor.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that God uses Jesus to show the example.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, Dr. Robyn, here's the key, and I'll probably come for some theology here, but God the Father did not live the human experience. Only one man did. Only one part of the Godhead has lived to the nth degree the human experience, and that is Jesus Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's why He qualifies to do what He needs to do in your life. That's why He qualifies, because He's been through it. I don't mean He's been sin, but He has experienced as a man taking off a godliness and putting on a manliness, if you want to say it like that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Great word.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so we can trust Him to walk through these things with us and have His name as our authority because God allowed Him to experience this so that we have that man, Jesus, as an example in our life.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: He is the ultimate visual aid. And what you just said then—taking off His godliness and putting on His manliness—there's an important thing here that we need to emphasize. He went to the worst, the possibility of the threat of the worst happening, and He faced it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Do you know, I think about this? I think when He's there on the cross and what He went through, He could call for all the angels to come. And God as a Father would have done that. But you see, He was set on God's will being done because this is part of God's plan: to introduce the one that He looks through to see our lives.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Let me bring out something that's really powerful here that people don't understand. When He's in the garden and He's feeling the weight of the suffering—Isaiah says "the man of suffering"—the weight of suffering. A lot of people have been taught that He was feeling the weight of separation from the Father. But the Father has never been separate from Jesus and never will be. Psalm 22 is what He was using when He cried out.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And He says, "Why have you forsaken me?" He's quoting Psalm 22, and later on, David in that Psalm says, "But you have not turned your face from me." So you can't just use a part of scripture and say that's what He's saying. Anyway, we could talk about that another time. But He's feeling the pressure in this garden. And I want to bring out the time frame.

We read it from a looking-back perspective. We see maybe five minutes. We can read that whole context. He's literally probably struggling for at least four to five hours because it's three times. He asks the Father three times to take this from me. So that doesn't happen in a matter of five minutes. And remember, they had fallen asleep. So they had to be asleep for a while while He was in there talking with His Father.

But why I'm bringing this out is because He's feeling so much pressure and so much anxiety. This is powerful. You've got to know Jesus felt what you feel when you feel anxiety. He felt that anxiety.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And what He does is His body produces such a response that He begins to sweat blood. That is a result of the brain going into such a frenetic state of fight or flight.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Jesus has felt fight or flight like you and me. That's important for someone to hear. He's gone through that experience. That process, physiologically, is called hematidrosis. And that's where the capillaries around the sweat glands burst and blood mixes in with the sweat.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So we see the significance of it. You've got to realize His humanity. He faced the worst. And you all have to face the worst because you don't get to escape from it. Because the worst will deal with the fear. If you can deal with the fear, you face the enemy. You see, but we try to escape it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And Jesus never tried to escape it. And I want to go so far as saying if I identify with God only, it gives me an escape from the human experience.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's right. And if you identify with the Holy Spirit, you get the action.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You can fly your way out. But with Jesus, you've got to face the man. You've got to face the confrontation of the possibility of the threat coming true. It's not that it will come true, but David had to look Goliath in the face and had to face his giant in the face.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But I want to tell you, this morning before I even started, God said to me by the Holy Spirit: introduce Jesus into the first love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Praise God that He did say that to you, because this is going to revolutionize people's relationship with Jesus. And so coming back to this, Jesus faced the threat. Now, the threat was not separation from the Father. The threat was He had the potential to walk away. And that's why He says, "If this can be taken from me, take it from me."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And we have to recognize God gave Him the right to face it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We give up that right to face the worst and let Jesus overcome it through us so many times.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, because it's in the name of Jesus all authority is given. And you can't have the authority over fear unless you face it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow, I've got to let that land. So we're coming to the end. We can talk more about this. Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me; I lay it down, but I also pick it up." We always focus on the laying down. That's the first part of Jesus as a man, the suffering servant, the one that lays His life down. But you can't get to "I have the right to pick it up" until you go through Jesus as the transforming person in your life.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's true. But we always want the right to pick it up apart from Jesus. We do struggle with that man, Jesus. I know I do. And but that's something is my testimony. I don't. I think I struggle with God the Father and that's because I'm coming to terms with a loving Father. I struggle with that. But I do not struggle with a man, Jesus. I do not struggle with God the Holy Spirit, and I do not struggle with the Son of the living God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Five power statements to quickly end it on my part and then I'm going to throw it to you for final words. Number one, what we established in the beginning: transformation is not a process that we manage; it is a person that we follow and that we have an intimate relationship with. Number two: you cannot become like God by striving. You become like Christ by beholding. Number three: if Jesus is not the main role in your story, then the story will never make sense.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And you'll never come into God's story because He chose who's going to star in His story. Jesus is the leading role. You can't have a belief in a story if you don't believe the leading role, because they're the ones that bring the story alive.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Number four: you cannot walk in authority if you bypass the name it comes through.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It only can come through the name of Jesus. Maybe that explains why a lot of us still lack authority in our lives. It's very much the case. And Jesus gave that authority to His church. But the church wants to give it back to God. But God's given it to His Son. I'm telling you, you want the authority to live that Christian life? It's in the name of Jesus that all authority is given.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Last statement: you do not rise above pressure; you reveal what you believe in the pressure. And so what is God doing? His story, let's establish this: God's story is not about improving you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No. It's about revealing Jesus.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Okay, I'm done. Dr. Robyn, takeaway final words.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, there's one thing I just want you all to know, that God looks through the eyes of Jesus in you and can bring you back to God's first love through that man called Jesus.

Guest (Female): 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.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.