Brian Castelli – With His Heart

My commute to work stretched out in front of me like a scroll. I didn’t feel like listening to the teaching mp3’s I had loaded in my player–too heavy. I’d had a bad night and a worse morning. I felt overwhelmed. It seemed like nothing was going right. I felt alone, like no one else could really understand. I reached into the center console and pulled out a Mark Shultz CD. I hoped that a bit of music would lift my spirits.

I inserted the CD into the dash-mounted player. Track 1 played for a moment. No. Skip to track 2. Then 3. Then 4. Ah! That was the one. I Have Been There. One of the choruses reads this way:

Oh I have been there
I know what fear is all about
Yes, I have been there
And I am standing with you now
I have been there
And I came to build a bridge oh so this road could
Lead you home
Oh I have been there

God has been there. He does understand my situation. He understands, not in some abstract, aloof way, but as God-made-man in Christ Jesus. Even when I feel alone, like there’s no one who has been in my shoes before, I can know that He has been there.

I brushed a tear from my eye as I drove. Thank you, Jesus.

We ended up watching our 6-year-old neighbor while her parents went to the hospital. It was all very unexpected. Unprepared, we “entertained’ with DVDs. One of them was, “Finding Nemo.” There’s an amazing scene in the movie that got me thinking.

Marlin and Dory are searching desperately for Marlin’s son, Nemo. Along the way they both end up inside of a whale. Marlin freaks out, but Dory is calm, insisting that she can understand the low-pitched droning of the whale’s voice. Here’s one of their exchanges, courtesy of Wikiquote:

Dory: [the whale speaks to her] Okay, that one was a little tougher. He either said “We should go to the back of the throat”, or “he wants a root-beer float”.

Marlin: Of course he wants us to go there! That’s eating us! [rubs his tail on the whale's tongue] How do I taste, Moby? Do I taste good?! [to Dory] You tell him I’m not interested in being lunch!

Dory: Okay. He-e-e-e–

Marlin: Stop talking to him!

Dory: He (the whale) says “It’s time to let go!” Everything’s going to be all right!

Marlin: How do you know? How do you know something bad is gonna happen?!

Dory: I-I don’t!

The last part of the scene takes place as Marlin is holding on to the whale’s tongue as it raises up threatening to send he and Dory sliding down into the back of the throat. Marlin is fighting with everything he has, refusing to surrender control. Dory was willing to trust. She just let go.

It turns out that the whale had transported them to their destination and was putting them in the back of his throat so that he could deliver them via his blow hole. Although everything around them made it look like it was the end, the bigger picture was that they were safe. All they had to do is trust in something bigger then themselves, trust what the whale was telling them.

I think it’s like that with us and God. I heard Dr. Irwin Lutzer on the radio this morning. He told the story of guests at a castle walking up to a huge tapestry on the floor of a great hall. From the up-close perspective of walking on the tapestry, there was no discernible pattern. The tapestry looked like a mainly random collection of colors and patterns. When the guests climbed the stairs, however, and looked down from a great height, they could see that the tapestry was actually a large, beautiful picture. Up close, the big picture was obscured. This is like Marlin and Dory inside the whale. They couldn’t see what was going on outside.

This is also like us. When we look at the world and our circumstances in it we can only see what’s up close. We sometimes get glimpses of God’s larger themes, but mostly the big picture is hidden from us. We’re too close, too deep in the tapestry to always be able to make sense out of what we see. Like Dory, we sometimes need to trust and let go, trust that God has it under control even though what we see suggests otherwise.

I think this is one of the most difficult parts of being a Jesus Follower: Trust beyond what we can see. That why strong faith is grounded in knowledge rather than feelings.

I recently rented the movie, “Hancock,” starring Will Smith as John Hancock, reluctant super hero. (Using RedBox for the first time! $1 a night! Try it!) In entertainment terms, it was so-so. The special effects were good, the acting was fair, but the story had holes a mile wide. At the center of it all, though, was the story of John Hancock’s redemption. When the movie opens, we find that Hancock isn’t well liked. Many of the people in the city want him gone. Along the way, Hancock saves the life of a professional PR man who, in return, helps Hancock with his image.

At first the changes are superficial. Hancock sticks to the script he’s been given and pretends to be different. Through a series of events, however, he goes through a true transformation – one that enables him to lay his own life on the line for someone else.

I like redemption stories because they strike very close to home for us. At some level, we’re all messed up like Hancock. John Eldredge in his book, “Wild at Heart,” says that we’re all posers, hoping that no one gets a peek under our fig leaves. In the movie, Hancock is, in a way, running from himself. He knows that he has flaws, and he protects himself from that knowledge by adopting a, “I don’t give a hoot,” attitude.

Isn’t that just like us? I mean, aren’t there times in our lives when our #1 goal is to cover our weakness in order to appear strong? And, although I like redemption stories, Hancock falls well short of reality. That is, we actually can’t fix ourselves. on our own power, we can change for a time and even make steps in the right direction. But it takes something outside of us, something greater, to affect true change.

Here’s the bottom line: We’re all the same. We’re all messed up. In fact, we’re messed up beyond our ability to fix it. We can’t do it on our own power. This is where Jesus steps in. Romans 5:8 tells us that God loved us so much that he saved us while we were still sinners. No clean up required. No perfect saints in this church. Just saints that have been cleaned up by God.

Jesus changes things. That’s true redemption.

(Originally published in May of 2007)

I believe that many Christians are making a very big mistake. Standing in opposition to presidential hopeful Governor Mitt Romney on faith grounds sets a very dangerous precedent. Christians and others should be very wary of introducing a kind of spiritual litmus test for candidates.

Here are the problems that I predict. There may be more:

1. If Christians insist on making Romney’s Mormon faith an issue, the issue will be defined in the media by people who are ill-equipped to argue any side. The result will be that the most extreme views will be the ones that make the evening news, and the country will react with horror at the intolerance of Christians. All Christians. As usual, a few extremists will give the rest of us a bad name.
2. If faith becomes a central issue in the coming election, let’s take the issue to it’s logical, extreme conclusion. A nation that is becoming increasingly hostile toward religion might soon decide that no faith (that is, faith that there is nothing out there) is the only faith that can be allowed, and spiritual matters will be excluded from the public square.
3. I don’t think you can really claim that the way people choose to vote is unconstitutional, but I dare say that it is quite contrary to the establishment clause in the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As much as I disagree with Mormonism, Governor Romney has a constitutionally-guaranteed right to follow the religion that he chooses. I will not convert to his faith, but I will defend his right to follow it. (I might try to talk him out of it, but that’s another matter…)

The Constitution lists the qualifications for becoming President of the United States of America. I didn’t see faith listed there.

In the same way that I defend Governor Romney’s right to follow the faith of his own choosing, I also defend the right of all citizens to vote their conscience. The place where there needs to be caution is in the media debate about his faith. We Christians should lead by example, not by political boycott.

The fundamental doctrines of Christianity were in place within 50 years of Christ’s death and resurrection and they are still in place today. This is proved by the scholarship of ancient literature that has uncovered more than 25,000 full and partial manuscripts of the New Testament, dozens of non-Christian sources, thousands of letters of early church leaders, and thousands of lectionaries used in early Christian worship services. These documents, including the secular accounts, give a solid, consistent picture of the fundamentals of the faith. No one tampered with or edited them.

The Bible can be trusted. The theory that the church has edited it over the years is false. When modern scholars do translations, they don’t go by what the church says; they go directly to the oldest, most reliable manuscripts.

The thought that Christian denominations have altered their doctrine might come from churches like the Roman Catholics. Protestant churches believe that the Bible is the complete revelation of God to man. The Roman Catholics believe that the Bible is only part of the revelation and that God is continuing his revelation through the history and traditions of the church. In the latter model, when the church decides to change things, it can appear that Christian doctrine is changing. This kind of changing was the impetus for Martin Luther and others to break from the Roman Catholic church and start what came to be known as the Reformation.

Since the Reformation, many Protestant churches have split and many denominations have formed. This can be confusing and give the impression that things are changing. The fact is that these splits occur because prideful humans disagree over relatively minor points. The main doctrines of the Christian church are maintained by all Bible-believing churches.

Someone recently asked for advice about their faith. He wrote that he was a former Catholic who had become “a nothing” – his words. He was looking for direction. I was once in his situation. I chose to become an atheist due to my doubts and my lack of faith in the Catholic Church. More than 20 years ago, however, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ. I now live as a Jesus Follower.

I don’t follow the Catholic faith for a very simple reason. It’s the same reason that Martin Luther and others used to start the Reformation that led to the formation of the Protestant church. That reason is that the Catholic church teaches that the Bible is only *part* of God’s revelation to man. They believe that the other part is the ongoing history and traditions of the church. In other words, they give equal weight to the Bible and to their established teachings and traditions. For reasons I will probably never understand, they have ignored the warnings in the Bible that say *not* to follow the traditions of men and to *not* add anything to the Bible. They teach that it isn’t possible to get to heaven without the church, that the church somehow connects a person to God. This is contrary to the Bible’s clear teaching that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is both sufficient and exclusive; he is the only way and there is nothing anyone can do to add to what he’s done for us.

Where I have found clarity of faith is in the Protestant focus on the Bible. It is a sound, reliable document that has *not* been altered by the church. (Did you know that modern biblical translations are based on the oldest, most reliable ancient manuscripts? Many predate any possible “editing” by the church or anyone else to suit their theology. Pick up a copy of the NIV or NASB and read the translation description at the front. You will be blown away by the level of scholarship you find…)

You aren’t “nothing”. Each of us is one of God’s creations. He put each of us on this earth for a specific purpose. Go find God and that purpose.

Here’s a web site that might help you think correctly about your approach to religion.

http://www.family.org/faith/A000000724.cfm