Heaven for Billionaires

Revelation 21:21, “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.”

     

I know many people who are multimillionaires. I know a few people that are worth in excess of one hundred million. I have even met personally 2 billionaires. One billionaire had a collection of jets. Among the many he owned he had a MIG from Russian and an F18 as well. The other had warehouses full of cars worth millions upon millions of dollars. But I never had any real or meaningful interaction with the billionaires. But recently I have had the opportunity to interact with a billionaire in a common passion we share. I won’t say their names or how I know them, but I can tell you there is nothing out of their reach financially. They have the finest in equipment and literally hundreds of ranches scattered from Mexico to the Canadian border. One of their many Texas ranches is in excess of 140,000 acres.

Now I don’t know if you understand how big 140,000 acres is, but that is in excess of 218 square miles. To put it in perspective, Austin, Texas is only 297 square miles. Jamaica is only 166 square miles. But this story is not about the billionaires as they are very nice, very humble people, and even generous. But as I have been interacting with them I thought, “I wonder what heaven is like for billionaires?” I asked this because as I look at their life I think that if my afterlife looked like what I have seen with them today… to me that would be heaven. To be a steward of God’s creation on a mass scale with all the resources to accomplish His commands and my will upon it. Wow, that would be heaven. And so I wondered, if they go to heaven will they be disappointed?

Will they receive even more of whatever God has for us in heaven because they have so much here? After all, didn’t Jesus say that to those who have more will be given? (Mk 4:25) Will the lowest reward in heaven be less than what the billionaires experience today? Paul talked about the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3 and how our effort here on earth will be judged and those efforts that pass the judgment will be given a reward, while the others will be burned up by fire. And so what if the billionaires had all their works burned up in judgment yet make heaven? Will their experience of heaven be less than their experience of earth having had no limitations of doing anything?

We understand that the saints go to heaven and the sinners to hell, but if there is no one but saints in heaven who or what are we to reign over? When the bible speaks of reigning with Christ (Rev 5, 2 Tim 2, 1 Cor); do we reign with Him over mankind in some hierarchical, governmental manner, and will the billionaires still be above the common? And if they are not distinguished as above, how then can heaven be heaven to them having enjoyed so much in life?

All of which is rhetorical, and simply designed to make you think as it has made me think.

I am reminded of what I first heard from Pastor Dusty Kemp. He said, “For those that our perishing this life is the only heaven that they will know. For those that are saved, this life is the only hell we will know.”

For me heaven will be coming face to face with my God and Savior. Removing the mystery, the questions without answers, the wondering of what is Him and what is not. Heaven is the access, the face to face interaction with God. In light of spending the first few billions years in awe of that, who really cares who has what in heaven? I dare say that not a one of us who makes it will be disappointed