As an accountant, I naturally love numbers. You may be aware that there are 168 hours in a week, 720 in a month, and 8,760 in a year. Removing the time to sleep, eat, and work, we have plenty of the remaining hours at our disposal to choose how they are best spent. When considering how to prioritize our 168-hour week, we often think of how much (quantity) to spend on an activity or task. Perhaps our focus should instead be on what or to whom (quality) we should prioritize our time.

As believers, we would all agree that our relationship with God should be our number one priority. The gateway through which we pass into a restored relationship with God is the cross. We need look no further than the life of Jesus as the perfect model for us to follow. In 1:29-2:17 of Mark’s gospel, he vividly describes the priorities of Jesus. He loved and had compassion for the people and the people loved and followed him. The people brought the sick to Jesus, and He healed them. He loved the tax collectors and sinners and was happy to have dinner with them. However, Jesus’ love and relationship with the people went beyond his meeting their physical needs.

Jesus’ first priority was his relationship with God the Father. In Mark 1:35, we read, ‘And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.’ If Jesus realized the importance of prayer before he started his day, we should do no less. Pastor Dan commented in a recent message that any day in which we do not pray, we are in essence telling God that we do not need him that day. How foolish on our part! After praying, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth’ (v.38). The message he preached was good news about the kingdom of God and the need for people to repent and believe the Good News. It was a message all about forgiveness and, for Jesus, an even higher priority than healing. 

When considering the Ten Commandments, the first four are about how we respond to God’s love by loving him. The last six commands are about our love for others – our families, our husbands/wives, and our neighbors. In Matt 22:37-39 Jesus summarized it like this, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” A quote from John Wesley regarding loving and doing good to others: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”