Seven Dangers You Face as a Spiritually-Single Christian

By Robert Jones

While marriage can be difficult, being married to a non-Christian can be doubly difficult. But God can help you.

By spiritually-single, I mean believers in Christ married to those who don’t follow Jesus Christ. Jesus envisioned the possibility of spiritually-mixed marriages in passages like Luke 14:25-27. The apostle Paul addresses this reality in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, as does the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:1-6. Thankfully, each passage brings direction and hope.

How did you become spiritually single? Perhaps you and your spouse were both unsaved when you married, but the Lord graciously saved you. Or maybe you were a believer who didn’t know God’s command only to marry a believer (1 Cor. 7:39-40; 2 Cor. 6:14-18). Or you knew God’s command, but you disregarded or defied it, and you married your non-Christian fiancé anyway. Or you thought that person was a believer, but your spouse now evidences no commitment to the Lord.

Regardless of how you formed your spiritually-mixed marriage, you now face an array of daily spiritual dangers as a Christian. Consider seven temptations you uniquely meet in your marriage.

1. Letting Your Good Desire for Your Spouse’s Conversion Rule Your Heart

While we should strongly yearn for our unsaved spouse to know and submit to King Jesus, even this desire can become idolatrous if it becomes a demand toward God or if we live with despair, anger, or anxiety if it doesn’t happen (e.g., Luke 24:21). It can lead to manipulative attempts to make your spouse a Christian. Instead, ask God to help you learn to balance fervent prayer with biblical trust and contentment.

2. Daydreaming about Being Married to a Christian

The world continually sends messages that tempt us toward discontentment. Even Christian romance novels, films, or social media—or a Christian man or woman you know—can tempt you to long for a better or different godly partner. But escapism through fantasy denies God’s sovereign, wise, and good purposes for you. God was not asleep when you wed your spouse—He was at the ceremony—even if you did so unwisely.

3. Envying Those Who Have a Christian Spouse

No doubt, there are benefits to a two-believer marriage. Christian couples find it easier to make joint decisions, raise their children, and handle finances and in-laws. But comparison will tempt you toward discontentment. Envy assaults God’s goodness. It leaves you no room to rejoice with these brothers and sisters, thank God for their salvation, pray for them, serve them, and enjoy them. Moreover, we can forget that their remaining sin means even those marriages remain imperfect.

4. Becoming Angry at God and Blaming Him

Resentment complains, “I can’t believe God allowed me to fall in love with a non-Christian man.” It accusingly asks, “Why, God, have you not saved my spouse yet? Don’t you love me enough to give me what I’ve prayed for?” Unanswered prayer tests our belief in God’s goodness and our willingness to rest in God’s sovereign, electing grace. Believers must learn to replace sinful anger against God with godly lament. Like the psalmists, tell God your struggles. But remember your finiteness, rehearse His glorious acts and attributes, repent of your accusations against Him, and learn to trust His wisdom.[1]

5. Expecting Christian Thinking or Behavior from Your Unsaved Spouse

Does your spouse’s sinful behavior shock you? Why? The apostle Paul reminds you, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:6-8; cf. 1 Cor. 2:14). Don’t expect your non-Christian spouse to act biblically; they are incapable of this apart from a saving relationship with Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

6. Compromising Your Godly Convictions

Because marriage involves joint decisions, some situations will tempt you to compromise your godly convictions. Maybe to avoid conflict, you have given in to your spouse’s ungodly decisions. Or you don’t know when to speak up in disagreement and when to keep quiet, trust God, and pray. Ask God to fortify your godly convictions but to help you voice and live them graciously. At the same time, make sure your standards are biblically-based—not higher than God’s—so as not to impose legalistic pressure on you or your unsaved spouse.

7. Proudly Comparing Yourself to Your Unbelieving Spouse

Along with the point above, remember you also were once incapable of acting biblically. Paul calls us “to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone”—including an unsaved spouse—because, before God saved us, “at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another” (Titus 3:2-3). You were saved by grace alone. And even now, apart from the Lord, you can do nothing (John 15:5). According to our Lord’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14, the only thing worse than being an evildoer (or whatever sins you dislike about your spouse) is being proud you are not one. In short, you were not as good as you think you were then, and not as good as you think you are now. Whatever godliness you display is solely because of the Spirit’s transforming work in you.

Conclusion

Living as a Christian with a spouse who doesn’t follow Jesus brings numerous challenges. But as hard as that is for you right now, remember the devastating eternal destiny your spouse faces. Unless God saves them, they are heading toward final judgment and a Christ-less eternity. Recall that God saved you when you were “powerless, ungodly, sinners, and God’s enemies” (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10). Ask God to do that for your unsaved spouse. And as you do, love that person with the love Christ has given you. Live out this relationship with godly deeds and attitudes (1 Pet. 3:1-6).

Questions for Reflection 

1. Which of these seven temptations are most problematic for you?

2. What does God’s Word say about them? Have you talked to God about them?

3. Have you shared your struggle with your pastors and with godly (same gender) brothers or sisters? Point them to this article and ask them to pray for you, encourage you, and coach you in being a godly spouse in your spiritually-mixed marriage.

[1] See Robert D. Jones, Angry at God? Bring Him Your Doubts & Questions, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2003).

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/11/23/seven-dangers-you-face-as-a-spiritually-single-christian/

The Power of Sin in the Life of an Unbeliever

Colin Smith

The unbelieving person does not see anything of the splendor of Christ and does not yet have the life of Christ in his or her soul. So, what does the secret power of sin look like in the life of your unbelieving friend, relative, or neighbor?

Sin is a secret power, working in the soul. 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 gives us a devastating analysis of its power and effect. Sin produces bitter fruit in a person’s life. This is what sin does.

[Satan] will use…every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Seven Bitter Fruits of Sin 

1. Deception

…every sort of evil that deceives…  (2 Thess. 2:10).

Notice that the Scripture says, “evil… deceives.” Satan makes sin look attractive. This is the nature of sin; it always does that.

Some sin will disgust you. You will wonder to yourself, “How could anyone do that?” But some forms of sin will be attractive to you. That is where Satan deceives, and it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

2. Perishing

… evil that deceives those who are perishing. (2 Thess. 2:10).

Notice the present tense. There is a theme that runs right through the life of a person who is without Jesus Christ. There is an unraveling of life that is going on now, a taking down, a becoming less. This is a process that has already begun. By nature, we are perishing.

3. Refusal to love the truth

They perish because they refused to love the truth… (2 Thess. 2:10).

These people heard the truth and refused to believe it. But the real issue here is that they refused to love it. The heart governs the life more than the head. The greatest barrier to faith lies not in the doubts of the mind but in the desires of the heart.

4. Delight in wickedness

…all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess. 2:12).

“Delight[ing] in wickedness” is the explanation of “not believ[ing] the truth.” Where the heart loves wickedness, the mind cannot embrace the truth. It’s impossible! Jesus said, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from… God?” (John 5:44).

5. Powerful delusion

For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion… (2 Thess. 2:11).

The reason is that they refused to love the truth. This is looking down the line of what happens when a person persists in resisting and pushing Christ away. Here are folks who’ve heard the truth and they’ve refused it.

You cannot get away from God’s activity here: God sends. God gives them what they desire. They do not want the truth, and so now they’re unable to receive it.

I want to press home on all who’ve not yet received Christ, the danger of continuing to refuse Him.  As you hear the Word, some of you are putting off a response to Jesus, “I’ll become a Christian later.  I’ll respond to God in my own time.”  Even right now you would push away Jesus Christ.

You say, “I can become a Christian later,” but you may not be able to. The secret power of sin is at work in you. That’s why the Bible says repeatedly, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:15).  Warren Wiersbe says it well:

“The human heart becomes harder each time the sinner rejects God’s truth.” [1]

You feel Him reaching out to you and you’re pushing him away. Every time you hear the Word of God something happens in your soul. The Word of God that you are hearing today will make you softer or it will make you more resistant to Christ.  It never leaves you the same.

Jesus said, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer.  Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you” (John 12:35).  Sinners refuse to love the truth, and down the line they end up with a delusion. They can no longer see what they used to see.

This is how God’s judgment works in this world. God gives sinners what they want. That is why a life of resisting God and running from God ends up in an eternity apart from God—in the darkness, with the God-haters, outside the light and the joy of His presence.

6. Faith in the lie

God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie” (2 Thess. 2:11).

“The lie” goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Satan said, “You will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). “You’re a good person. You don’t need Christ’s sacrifice. You can work it out yourself.”

When a man feels that he is the captain and commander of his own life, that he is his own god, his own law and that he can stand on the merits of his own goodness, you know that he has swallowed the lie. He is living under a powerful delusion.

7. Condemnation

…all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess. 2:12).

“Condemnation” is a terrible word. Don’t you shudder when you hear it? We rejoice in Romans 8:1 that says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”, but the reason that has meaning for us is found right here in 2 Thessalonians 2:12.

To those who have resisted the claims of the Savior, who have not loved the truth but have believed the lie, Christ will say, “I never knew you. Depart from me!” (Matt. 7:3). Then, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30). Did you know that Jesus said that phrase seven times? I do not want that for you. Those who pray for you do not want that for you.

These seven bitter fruits of sin show us why we need a Savior. Jesus Christ has come into the world because we need saving from the mystery of sin that is at work in every human life.

_____

This article is an adaptation of Pastor Colin’s sermon, “The Lord Jesus Christ: Coming in Glory”, from his series, Staying the Course (When You’re Tired of the Battle.

1. Warren Wiersbe, Be Ready: Living in the Light of Christ’s Return (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 1979), 153.

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