Jesus prioritized people. He spent much of his time with people that had terrible reputations, but he didn’t seem bothered by outward appearances—when he looked at people, he looked at their hearts, and while he still saw imperfections and shortcomings, he focused on who they could be.
Take Peter for example. He was a fisherman with a hot temper who frequently made mistakes and made himself look like a fool, but Jesus trusted Peter with leadership no one else would have. He saw that Peter was capable of so much more than anyone else gave him credit. This got us wondering how us regular people prioritize. How do we compare to Jesus? Well, we started by trying to figure out how we see ourselves. We asked if people have the right priorities in their own life. Turns out 86% of people said they do. But when we ask that same question about others, it seems we don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt. Only 28% think the people around them have their priorities well-aligned.
But are our priorities actually so different? Not as much as you’d think.
Towards the top of many priority lists are loved ones. 90% of people said that they would sacrifice personal gain in order to benefit the people they love. 90% isn’t some small faction—most of us are actually on the same page. And most of us would self-identify that we’re on the same page as Jesus.
You see, 68% of people agree that Jesus could’ve used his ability, his power, or his influence, for personal gain, but he didn’t.
And another 78% of people agree that Jesus used his power and fame to set an example for those who would share his message—most of us think that Jesus gave up the opportunity for wealth, power, and influence in order to ensure that the people around him would learn to live selflessly for those around them as well. The thing that’s maybe the most interesting about all of this is that Jesus acted the way most of us want to.
Whether we actually act in line with our own stated priorities is a different question, but for most of us, our default desire is to live our lives in a way that puts the people we love ahead of ourselves. Jesus just happened to be very good at living his priorities out and encouraging others to do the same. Maybe we can look to him as an example of how to put our priorities into action while remembering that our priorities are not so different from other people’s and even from Jesus’ approach.
