Today's lecture topic was sexual sin. We started off with a discussion
about how we can recognise when God is talking to us. Some key ideas
were given to us: first, if the thought would harm us, it wouldn't be
from God. Second, if the thought would harm someone else, it wouldn't
be from God. Third, if the thought is contrary to God's word in the
Bible, then it wouldn't be from God.

Some other thoughts we covered: we shouldn't use our feelings as a
basis of our actions. Our feelings can lie to us. God does not. Also,
we often try to rationalise or bargain God out of our lives.

The story was told of a YWAMer who was in a shopping mall, and thought
he heard God saying to go over to a vending machine and stand on his
head. This seemed odd, but it wouldn't hurt him or anyone else, and it
wasn't illegal, so he went and did it. It turned out there was another
man in the mall who was struggling with faith in God, and told God if
He got someone to stand on their head next to the vending machine,
then he would believe in God. And so, sometimes we have odd thoughts,
but just because they are odd, doesn't mean they are not from God.
Also, just because we think a thought is a "normal" or natural
thought, it doesn't mean it wasn't from God. The phrase the teacher
has used is "being naturally supernatural".

Some important lessons from the rest of the talk were: Learn to
correct mistakes before they become problems; the most powerful thing
we have when bad things happen to us is how we respond (this is
something that came up in my Bible reading notes yesterday. This keeps
on happening!); we get the grace to act in a situation when we need
it, not before; keep your eyes on the healer, not the healing; God may
break us because of our pride and stubbornness, not to keep us broken
- but to make us in to the people we are meant to be; our ministry
will reflect our character; fear of the Lord is hatred of sin.

We also talked a bit about the occult, and how harmful it is to open
ourselves up to such things. Anything that is used to try to
supernaturally reveal something about out past, present or future
without God (for example, horoscopes), is a form of control, and puts
us in a place of danger, open to things that we should not be.

After Community Care, the team going to India went in to Haywards
Heath, to Starbucks to have a chat about our arrangements. We will be
leaving on the 11th of December, and arrive on the 12th. We will be
back about the same time in February. We talked about the different
roles we will be responsible for while there. I will be responsible
for keeping track of the accounts.

Once we got back, we enjoyed the German themed meal, and then I had my
one to one meeting, which was nice.