Last week we looked at the three tempations of Christ in which he clarified his personal values. This qualified him as someone worth following. Today I want to discuss his operational values for life and ministry. They are simple, transferrable, and rank ordered.

Love God. Love People. That’s the essence of Jesus’ operational values—his response to the scribe requesting Jesus’ greatest commandment (see Mark 12:28-30). Jesus basically quoted the Hebrew Shema and covered the ten commandments with that response (Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5: The first four deal with our relationship with God, last six with our relationships with others).

Jesus’ operational values are transferable. If all proponents of Christianity just practiced these two commands with all their heart—what a different world we would live in!

Lastly, they are rank ordered. It’s important to note that loving God comes first, loving others, second. How can you truly love others if you don’t first love God? What type of truth will you love others with if you’re not properly aligned with God? In fact, are you really loving others if you’re not first loving God?

[Next week I will share my personal rank-ordered values and discuss the importance of defining or clarifying statements to go along with them].