Father's House Blog

A few Christmases ago, one of my close friends overheard that my favourite Disney animated film is The Lion King. Ever since I took my children to see it when it first came out in 1994 I have adored this movie and I was clearly raving about it. She also overheard me say that I didn’t own a copy on DVD and that it wasn’t available anywhere in the shops. So on Christmas Day 2008 she presented me with a beautifully wrapped gift. In it was a DVD of The Lion King which she had tracked down on eBay and purchased from a south east Asian nation (don’t worry, it was all perfectly legal!). Ever since then I’ve been able to enjoy The Lion King on my home cinema system and watch it whenever I want to!

Why do I love this film so much? There are a hundred reasons but the main one has to do with the young lion cub Simba and his father, Mufasa the King. Early on in the film Mufasa is tragically killed and Simba feels responsible. He runs away and grows up in a foreign land. One day he looks into a pool of water. He sees his own reflection which then changes into the image of his father. Mufasa – speaking from the night sky - says that Simba has forgotten him and in the process forgotten himself. His father tells him to look inside himself and remember who he is, because he is more than what he has become. ‘Remember who you are’, Mufasa repeats. ‘You are my son and the one true King’.

What a great moment! And what a great picture! Many of us as Christians struggle with who we are. Like Simba, the painful memories from our past obscure our image of who we really are and what we are truly supposed to be. We so easily get dragged down into self-doubt and even self-hatred by abusive words uttered over us by others or by the lack of affirmation from an earthly father. Bound by episodes from our past history we are robbed by the enemy of our present identity and our future destiny. Like Simba, we forget who we really are and we live out of a toxic sense of shame. We feel like we are somehow a mistake, we’re worthless and sometimes that we shouldn’t even be alive.

What is the answer? For those who are in Christ, we need to have a change of perspective. Our minds, in short, need renewing. Once a person gives their lives to Jesus, they have a brand new identity because they are brand new people. As the Apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5.17, ‘if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’

What is our new identity as Christians? The truth is we are royal sons and daughters of the High King of Heaven. We are children of a perfect heavenly Father who reigns in the heavens over all of creation. With Jesus, we can stand in the river under an open heaven and hear the Father’s words that he spoke to his one and only Son by nature. We can hear them and receive them for ourselves, ‘You are my beloved son/daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3.17). We can revel and bask in an identity that is not based on performance (what I do) but on position (who I am). We can remember that we are the King’s son or daughter and that by adoption we are part of the royal family of heaven!

Maybe you are in a place of loneliness and discouragement right now. Maybe you’re like Simba in the musical version of The Lion King singing,

Where has the starlight gone?
Dark is the day
How can I find my way home?

Home is an empty dream
Lost to the night
Father, I feel so alone.

Let me encourage you to move on from past hurts as Simba did. Release forgiveness to those who shamed you and marred your sense of identity. Stand against the lies of the enemy – who is into identity theft. The Father of lies says you’re nobody but the Father of lights says ‘you’re my honoured prince/princess and heaven thinks highly of you!’

My prayer for you is that you would be able to move from a false, old identity to a new, true identity. You are not a bedraggled pussy cat. You are a lion, a lioness. And you were born again to RULE! As Rafiki says to Simba, ‘he lives in you’ so it’s time to leave the bad lands and come home!

To see the movie clip Mark is referring to CLICK HERE