Ira Stanphil was born in 1914 and was a member of the Assemblies of God. In 1948, his wife filed for divorce and moved to Texas. During that low period in his life, he heard a story about a business man who was also going through a crisis in his life: bankruptcy. During that period, the business man went to the top of a hill to pray. On the other side of the hill, he saw houses that looked neglected. He walked toward the houses and saw one which had a gate torn down as well as a fence. The yard did not have any grass, just dirt. But there was a little girl, about five years old, who was playing with an armless doll in the yard.
The business man asked the little girl why she could be happy with all the misery around her. She looked up at him with surprise on her face. “You haven’t heard the good news, have you? My father recently came into an inheritance of a lot of money. He’s just over that hilltop, and he’s building us a brand new mansion.” That’s when the business man realized that if he did lose everything, his heavenly father was preparing a place for him. That’s when Stanphil wrote the words to this song: “Mansion over the Hilltop.”
We have “just a cottage below.” Sometimes we think that things of the earth matter. We all have our “comfort zones.” But material things are just that: material. God can give more and more. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12-13 that he had learned how to be content in poverty as well as prosperity.
We have a mansion over the hilltop, where we will walk the streets of gold. The value of an item is determined by what it costs to purchase it. For example, a top of the line Lamborghini is almost $300,000. What if the cost were in pounds? How about a pound of gold? One thousand pounds of gold? We could spend $1,000 but it would be harder to accumulate 1,000 pounds of gold. At the current cost of gold – $1,600 per ounce – 1,000 pounds would be $25.6 million!
How valuable is the soul of man? It cost the life of God’s Son (1 Peter 1:18-19). That’s how much man’s soul is worth to God. He did this so we can live where “we’ll never grow old,” if we do His will (1 John 2:17). When we get to heaven, we “will not wander.” Here, life is transient. It is unstable and inconsistent. Of course, the passage behind the “mansion” imagery is John 14:2. “Many dwelling places” or “many rooms” is probably a better translation than “many mansions” (KJV). But, the point is the same: there is a lot of room in heaven!
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In the meantime, we have to live here in this physical world. But, Stanphil writes, don’t think “I’m poor, deserted, or lonely.” Jesus came to earth and accepted poverty so that we could be rich (2 Cor. 8:9). We don’t have to be “discouraged; I’m heaven bound!” Abraham, having a lot less spiritual support and motivation than we have, stayed faithful as he looked for a city whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10-13).
Yes, you and I are just pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11) in search of a city. Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). There, we’ll be given a “mansion, a robe, and a crown.” The robe is given us when we are immersed into Christ (Gal. 3:26-27). Our robes are made white by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 22:14). The crown we’ll receive has several facets: it is a crown of life (James 1:12), a crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8), and a crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4).
Keep that mansion in view and live like you want it!
Paul Holland
