There’s the idea that some people will have more rewards in heaven than others. It feels weird to say that those rewards would be material. A larger heaven house, more heaven currency, more heaven land. All of those things are also very American ideas of rewards anyway. No particular culture can own what a true “reward” might be. We are all loved equally by God, so I hesitate to say that a reward would mean a different level of favor in His eyes. I think what makes most sense to me is that the reward might look like one’s capacity to love and be joyful.
There will be no more sadness or pain in heaven, there will be only joy. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will be just as joyful. I think heavenly joy is the reaping of hope. What did we have hope in while alive? Did we put all of our hope in the Lord? Probably not on a practical level. It may have been our overarching belief and underlying faith, but we most likely held on to different hopes as well. Success both financially and relationally, hoping to see my grandkids achieve something, or just living for a few years without worrying about money. If not ordered correctly, these reasonable hopes can distract from our hope in the Lord. When we die, we’ll find how much of our hope was actually in the Lord.
Maybe heaven is hell for some. being given the Lord when they never asked for Him. Not receiving a single thing they asked for or hoped in. Being given the eternal opposite, eternally disappointed.
How are we molding our eternal hearts? How much space for love and joy in the Lord are we making for ourselves now? Do they correlate? I suspect many (myself included) expect it to be given us. We are given glorified bodies, but we remain ourselves. Our desires will have changed and we won’t have sin, but will we all have the same amount of joy? Do we have a say in the creation of the potential for love in heaven? Will there even be the concept of more or less?
It’s not wrong to have less love in heaven, because more or less is not about the essence of something. To be love at all is to be in heaven, so whether one is rewarded with a higher carrying capacity for love or not, it does not make one better than the other. In the same way, the man who was given 5 talents was not better than the one given only 1. They were just different. Either way, the man who invested and came back with 10 was not praised for having 10 for the sake of 10, but rather because he used his 5 well. On earth, the man with 1 could bury his, which is the only reason his 1 was a shame.
Heaven, I would think, may have variances of love or joy or whatever reward it may be. But because we are in heaven, we don’t focus on variance, but instead on using what we’ve been given and throwing it back to the one who’s given it in the first place.
It all sounds a little ridiculous though honestly. Even if it is (which it is), it can still be a nudge to understand what preparation is. Preparation and hope in the Second Coming and Resurrection. To prepare doesn’t mean to live in such a way so that Jesus is actually pretty impressed with how good a group of people we were. It has more to do with what we want. I will be most pleased when Jesus returns, not when I know he’ll be pleased with how prepped I am, but when his return is all that I hope for. I’ll have my whole life to figure out getting to that point, and it’ll probably take the whole thing for me to get there.
Look Down, Be Here 