Living like Royalty

“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” (Eccl. 9:7-10)

This is one of the great summary statements of the calling of the Christian life. Your calling as a Christian is to live like heaven. Work hard, love your wife, eat your dinner with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart. Dress sharp, look your best for those around you, and do it all not with some kind of pride or arrogance, but because God is good, because God has already accepted your works, because God looks at you and your family and all the work still to be done and says, you are my new creation in Christ, you are my beloved son and daughter in whom I’m well pleased. And this is why you are invited here week after week so that you will not forget who you are and how you are required to live. You are the beloved sons and daughters of the king, and therefore he invites you to his feast week after week, and he calls you to go out into your homes, work places, and neighborhoods and live like the royalty that you are. You are the nobility of God, and he invites you here to rejoice with bread and wine at this table and sends you out to do the same in all of life. If it’s pizza paper plates, eat it like sons and daughters of the king. If you drive a beater car, drive it with joy in your heart. If your family is pretty rough around the edges, love them, serve them, and speak to them and about them, like they are the best people in all the world. We do all of this not because we’re blind or apathetic, but because we are called to live by faith, imitating the God who calls those things which are not yet existent as though they were. Therefore come and rejoice as though everything was right in the world because it is and it will be.