Christian Actor Jim Caviezel Speaks to Liberty University Students: ‘You’re Here for a Reason’
Actor Jim Caviezel, who portrayed Jesus in the 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ,” told Liberty University students at the college’s convocation that God has given them an “opportunity.”
“You’re going to be given a power and an opportunity. You’re here for a reason,” Caviezel said this week at Liberty’s Convocation. “Jesus said, ‘If they persecute you, know they persecuted me first.'”
Caviezel was on campus to promote his new film, “Paul, Apostle of Christ,” in which he will portray Luke.
The film opens in theaters March 23.
According to CBN News, Caviezel said God called him at 19 to be an actor.
“I felt this love that I had never felt before, this peace I never felt before,” he recalled. “I heard God say, ‘I’d like you to be an actor.’ … I did not know where to go. I had a call to be an actor, but it was going to take Him to teach me and bring me to the right teachers, the right films to do.”
He was cast in “The Thin Red Line” before he received a call from an agent telling him that Mel Gibson wanted to meet him to discuss casting for “The Passion of the Christ.”
“(Mel told me), ‘If you take this part (of Jesus), you may not work in this town again,'” he said. “I felt fear come into me. That’s one thing about our faith. When that (fear) happens, that’s not Jesus.”
He told students that during filming he suffered physically, including being struck by lightning, being cut in the back and catching pneumonia, but he believed that God had him in the movie for a reason. He also encouraged the college students to have faith in their own careers and lives.
“God is going to put you in different places in your life,” he told the audience. “The world is going to look to you for hope, and you’re going to suffer for it.”
Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
Publication date: March 1, 2018
Comments are closed.