Ivory Palaces by Gary Rose

This picture is one of the most beautiful pictures of heaven that I can ever remember seeing. How wonderful it must be to be able to produce something so beautiful! To me it is the perfect compliment to the current picture that I am using for my “Heavenward” Bible project. 

After seeing these two together, I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite hymns called “Ivory Palaces”. It’s message naturally brought to mind two passages of Scripture, one from the old testament and the other from the new.

Psalm 45 ( World  English  Bible )

6 Your throne, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom.
7 You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
8 All your garments smell like myrrh, aloes, and cassia. Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made you glad.

 

 Philippians 2 ( World  English  Bible )

5 Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name;
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, 

The fact is that this world we live in contains people who love God and others who hate him. But God loved us so much that he gave his one and only son for everyone; both the good and the bad among us. Jesus could have stayed in the “Ivory Palaces” but rather chose to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. Somehow, I just can not stop the words of that hymn coming to my mind… over and over.

How wonderful being a Christian is; joy and blessing, merged with the hope that someday soon I will meet the one who suffered for me! I hope that you can say the same!

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