Posted by By Mark Tetley
Formulas – Unless you are a math guru or a science fanatic, you don’t think about them very much. The reality is that we live in a world of formulas. If you have ever cooked following a recipe or determined how much detergent to use depending on the size of your load of laundry, you’ve used a formula.
The formula at the top of the page is used by businesses.* They often use complex formulas called algorithms to predict what we are going to do next based on what websites we visit, what we eat, where we shop, and what we watch or listen to for entertainment.
The foundation for this blog comes from a time when Jesus Christ was asked to pick the greatest commandment out of the over 300 commandments in the books of the Law. His response was quick. “Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-30).
Is it possible that Jesus was not giving this man an academic answer that he could use when debating others in the synagogue? Could it be that he was actually revealing to him the formula for how to live the ultimate life? I believe He was. In doing so, He gave us a formula to live by.
THE ULTIMATE LIFE = (Love God Completely) + (Love Others as You Desire to be Loved)
This is not a simple formula. We may read it and agree with it, but it becomes real when we let it come to life in every area of our lives. We know we are getting close to it when we stop asking God for what we want and instead we tell Him that we want His will to be done in our lives. In our relationships, we stop expecting others to give us what we want and start giving others what we think they want.
We will deal more with these issues in the coming weeks. To get started, copy The Ultimate Life Formula, look at it every morning and make it your goal to live it out. Then, at the end of every day, look at it again, and ask yourself how you did.
* Lifetime Value Formula – Business use this to calculate how much it will cost them to get your business compared to how much money they will make off of you being a long time customer. (Bill Gurley, “The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula”)
Connections 