By Pastor Michael Fernandez

God has given me the gift of intensity and some of you might be like me. I’m actually an Engineer by trade. It seems to me it would be hard to be an engineer without being intense because there are so many problems to solve.  

Years ago, Teresa and I were the Singles Pastors here. When I moved on to a different position, I had to turn the Singles Group over to another person. It was part of my job to mentor this person. We struggled at first in communicating because we didn’t see eye to eye on things. I would go to Pastor Tim and say “do I have to work with this person?” and Pastor Tim would say “yes” and tell me to go work it out.  This other person would go to Tim and say that he couldn’t work with me and Pastor Tim would say you have to and go work it out. At first, I was pretty intense about it as his ideas seemed to go against my ideas. Finally, it dawned on the both of us that we loved the Single’s Group and we wanted the same things for them.

We were just going about it differently. He was using his gifts and I was using mine. I realized right then, just because we have differences, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, and it doesn’t mean we can’t work together with one mind and purpose. 

Philippians 2:1-2 NLT “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?  Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.”

As Christians we usually do want the same things -- like leading people to Christ -- but we might go about it from a different perspective. Today Pastor David and I are best friends and laugh about those early times together.  So, God helped each of us learn a great lesson.  That is “lighten up and you will find a way to love one another.”

Pastor Tim will be sharing from the Philippians Chapter 2, a message on “Let It Shine” this Sunday at 10:25 am online.  You can catch with me on Facebook Live, YouTube Live, our WaCathedral App or website.  Hope to see you there.