Priorities are peculiar.  No matter how dogmatic you try to be, you cannot be totally consistent with most of your priorities.  But many of life’s situations, especially those involving the home, are more permanent and require established priorities.  The following are priorities that will enhance your home life and encourage it’s success.

Persons before things.  A common failure, especially of men and of parents, is to give things instead of themselves.  This is not real love, but a form of bribery.  Our priority must be to give ourselves and then our things, whether it is to our marriage partner, children, or elderly parents.

Home before occupation.  No man can be described as as successful if his home is in shambles because of his commitment to his occupation.  of couse mothers need this admonition, too.

Partner before children.  It is possible for either the husband or the wife to devote so much time to the children that the partner is given second place.  A failure in this area may manifest itself in disagreements over child rearing in the presence of a child.  The husband and wife must consider each other before the children (Titus 2:4).  Children lean about love by seeing their parents love each other.  Of course, this is what make divorce so devastating to children.  Their whole sense of security rests in their parent’s love for each other.

Children must come before friends.  As important as friends are, such a lofty statement is never said to them: “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3).

Partner before self.  The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it (Ephesians 5:25).  In like fashion, the wife is to be in supportive submission to her husband in everything, just like the church is in submission to Christ (Ephesians 5:24).  To do this ther must be the commitment to putting the partner first.  This is fundamental key to marriage.

Spiritual before the material.  In 2 Corinthians 4:18 the apostle Paul wrote, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” While it is necessary for us to spend much of our time on the material aspects of life, it is imperative for us to cultivate the spiritual characteristics of our lives.

The homes that emphasize the unseen things–the permanent attributes –are happier and far more stable than those that emphasize the material.  The home that thrives on permanent values stresses the spiritual even if it is invisible.

Written by Stan Toussaint (Dallas Seminary) p332-333 [Holman O.T. Commentary]