Chapter 14

• Mack wonders if he will be able to hear Sarayu like he does now when he gets back home. (p.195)

Sarayu say…“Mackenzie, you can always talk to me and I will always be with you, whether you sense my presence or not.” …”You will learn to hear my thoughts in yours…”

• Do you hear the Holy Spirit speak to you easily or do you fight wondering if it is the Holy Spirit speaking or just yourself?

• Mack tells Sarayu that he is afraid of emotions. (p. 196)
• Sarayu tells Mack that emotions are neither good nor bad, they just exist. (p. 197)

“Here is something that will help you sort this out in your mind, Mackenzie. Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception – what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms – what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn’t make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe.”

• Is it easy for you to just believe something or do you reexamine what you believe with what God’s word says?

• Mack believes that the Bible teaches us to follow rules. (p. 197)

Sarayu responds…“The Bible doesn’t teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus. While words may tell you what God is like and even what he may want from you, you cannot do any of it on your own. Life and living is in Him and in no other.”

• Sarayu explains to Mack that there’s more to the relationship with them than having the right answers. It’s about finding the “living answer,” the Truth, and letting the Truth change you from the inside out. (p. 198)
• Sarayu leaves Mack and Mack heads back into the cabin to have dinner with the Trinity. (p. 199)
• Mack asks why they love humans when humans have nothing to offer them. (p. 200)

Jesus answers…“it should be very freeing to know that you can offer us nothing, at least not anything that can add or take away from who we are…that should alleviate any pressure to perform.” – (Eph. 2:10)

• Mack wants to know what the three of them expect of him when he returns home. (p. 201)

Sarayu answers…“When I hear language abused in favor of rules over sharing life with us, it is difficult for me to remain silent.”

• Sarayu then asks Mack why he thinks they came up with the Ten Commandments. (p.202)

Mack replies…”…I have been taught that it’s a set of rules that you expect humans to obey in order to live righteously in your good graces.” Sarayu responds…”Actually we wanted you to give up trying to be righteous on your own. It was a mirror to reveal just how filthy your face gets when you live independently.” – (2 Cor. 5:21)

• Do you feel that you are righteous?

• Sarayu goes on to explain that Jesus laid the law to rest and that it no longer has any power to accuse or command. (p. 203)

“Jesus is both the promise and its fulfillment.”…”Those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control.”

• Is your relationship with Jesus more about the rules or the relationship?

• Sarayu tells Mack that she will take a verb over a noun any day. (p.204)

(Read from book – p. 204 – 206)

• Do you respond to God in your relationship with him, or do you live by responsibility and expectation in that relationship?

(Read from book – p. 206 – 207)

• Is Christ the center of EVERYTHING in your life?