Do You Want a Mansion?

 The hilltop mansion was built by J.R. Simplot, the potato magnate who became a billionaire by building a corporation that supplied McDonalds with its golden French fries.  Simplot, who died in 2008 at age 99, gave the mansion to the state of Idaho in 2004.  The mansion was given to the state to serve as the residence for the governor of Idaho.  But the governor doesn’t want to live in it. 

When polled, the majority of the people recommended returning the mansion to the Simplot family, but the family doesn’t want it back.  All the while, the state of Idaho is spending thousands of dollars to maintain the empty mansion.  Nobody wants the mansion. 

Jesus told His apostles... In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am there you may be also.  John 14:2-3

I wonder if any of those apostles ever wondered what that mansion would be like.  We do know that Paul had some spiritual experience where he saw things he could not speak of.  II Corinthians 12:1-6.  John gave us a glimpse of the heavenly mansion in Revelation 21:1-4 and Revelation 22:1-5.  But how many really want to live in the heavenly mansion?

It seems that most people are more interested in building up their earthly mansions and filling them with all the worldly goods that money can buy than they are in living in the eternal mansion.  Remember that Jesus said, But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Matthew 6:33  Among those things is the eternal mansion that Jesus said He was preparing in heaven.

Do you want a mansion?  Do you want a mansion Jesus is preparing, or are you satisfied with an earthly one only?