Five Prayer Points for Christian Marriage and Home Week

To prepare for a meaningful Christian home and marriage week, you should focus your prayers on establishing the family altar, seeking divine wisdom for parenting, maintaining spiritual consistency regardless of worldly business, choosing life partners "only in the Lord," and ensuring your home serves as a light for missionary labor.

Here are five specific prayer points for your celebration:

1. Establishing and Revitalizing the Family Altar: Pray for the strength to erect or restore the altar of domestic prayer in every home, ensuring that morning and evening worship is a heartfelt expression of gratitude rather than a mechanical formARSH July 23, 1857, page 91.9+2.

2. Wisdom and Consecration for Parents: Ask for the Holy Spirit to guide parents in teaching their children wisely and tenderly, recognizing that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom Proverbs 9:10CG 517.1+1.

3. Spiritual Priority Over Secular Business: Petition for the grace to never allow the cares of life or secular business to crowd out the sacred duty of family and secret prayer, keeping eternal interests firstRH October 22, 1889, par. 6+2.

4. Harmony and Purity in the Marriage Relation: Pray that husbands and wives will manifest the nobility and purity of Christ’s character, treating one another with compassion and avoiding the base passions that enervate the soul 1 Peter 3:1-7PH011 52.1+1.

5. The Home as a Missionary Field: Intercede for families to realize their mission extends beyond their own walls, that through gentle manners and loving acts, the home may become an object lesson of truth to the communityMH 352.2+2.

Family prayer receives too little interest and attention. In many cases, the morning and evening worship is little more than a mere form, a dull, monotonous repetition of set phrases in which the spirit of gratitude or the sense of need finds no expression. The Lord accepts not such service. But the petitions of a humble heart and contrite spirit he will...— ST May 25, 1882, Art. A, par. 9 (1874)

...t opportunity to bring religion into our home, and to present our petitions to the throne of grace. Church members should never feel so pressed with secular business as to neglect family prayer. It is impossible to estimate the loss sustained by such neglect, for from what source can you obtain light to guide your feet in the paths of righteousness, except through the channel of prayer? Where will you obtain the ligh...— RH October 22, 1889, par. 6 (1851)

...d, and parents will be called to account for the loss of their souls. Fathers, mothers, you need to seek God morning and evening at the family altar, that you may learn how to teach your children wisely, tenderly, lovingly.1The Review and Herald, June 27, 1899. Family Worship Neglected—If ever there was a time when...— CG 517.1 (1954)

...r virtues, energy, integrity, honesty, patience, courage, diligence, and practical usefulness. The father is in one sense the priest of the household, laying upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice. The wife and children should be encouraged to unite in this offering and also to engage in the son...— PCL 299.4 (2018)

... shadow, to the glorious heights above. The mission of the home extends beyond its own members. The Christian home is to be an object lesson, illustrating the excellence of the true principles of life. Such an illustration will be a power for good in the world. Far more powerful than any sermon that can be preached is the influence of a true home upon human hearts and lives. As the youth go out from such a home, the lessons they have learned are imparted. Nobler principles of life are introduced into other households, and an uplifting influence works in the community— MH 352.2 (1905)