You won the lottery! Now what?

If you're reading this, you've won the lottery. You really beat the odds. What do I mean?

Life, in the big picture, is not very common.  As far as we can tell, life is extremely rare beyond our own planet. We have not found proof of life outside earth. That's in the whole universe and that's any sort of life, forget about intelligent life.

So you being alive and able to read this post is a miraculous thing. An accomplishment that beat the odds far beyond winning any lottery. But like a monetary lottery, the real benefit for the winner comes from what they do with the prize. In our case, what do we do with that gift of existence?

In Mark 12:28, Jesus teaches us two basics for getting the most out of life. In response to a teacher of the Law's query, "Which is the most important commandment of all?" Jesus responds, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second most important commandment is this: ' You must love your fellow-man as yourself. ' There is no other commandment more important than these two. "

After the teacher of the Law pondered and agreed with this wholeheartedly, Jesus saw how wise the teacher was and told him, " You are not far from the Kingdom of God. "

While Jesus also preached other details on how to get the most out of our precious "beating the odds" gift, isn't it great that just by undertaking these two commandments we wouldn't be far from God's Kingdom? From living life as it was intended to be.

Love God with everything you have and love others as yourself. Can we do it?