If you say that God is first, then He must be first in your devotional life, your family life, and your professional life. God simply will not allow himself to be placed first on a list that we've concocted based on our own secular psychological paradigms regarding the overriding significance of family rather than on how Scripture presents family. When we visualize a spiritual hierarchy where God is first, the family is second and ministry is third, we necessarily place family as a barrier between ministry and God in our lives.
God is first - period. If He's our God, then He must be first everywhere. Ministry, to the extent that it reflects God's calling on our lives (which is the definition of ministry), forms the basis of a significant part of our daily conversations with God and to a large extent serves to identify who we are called "to be" in Him. I don't stop being a pastor when I get home. If anything, I need to be a pastor there more than I am anywhere else.
Contrary to popular Christian belief as espoused from countless pulpits around the globe, we are not placed on earth so that God can bless us. We're put here to do His will and to build His kingdom and not our own. We are here to serve others and to give ourselves away just like our Savior did before us (Matt. 20:28; John 13:6-9). It is what shows God that we truly love Him (John 21:15-17).
That said, it is so critical that we understand the part that the family plays in all of this. Below is an amazing article from Christianity Today that speaks to this, while bursting some bubbles we have long regarded as sacrosanct. It will challenge how you think about this thing we define as "Christianity".
Let's not, like Aaron, try to sell God a "bill of goods". Calves didn't make themselves then and they still don't make themselves now.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/january-february/russell-moore-putting-family-first-puts-church-odds-jesus.html
Blessings, Rev. Mario Gonzalez Jr., Esq., J.D.
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