What To Do When You're Saved BUT Your Spouse Is the DEVIL!

"Jarrell, I can't take it anymore! My spouse isn't saved...and doesn't the bible say something about not being unequally yoked??"

Oh, and here's one of my favorites: "Now that I'm saved, I see that my marriage was never ordained of God in the first place. So I feel at peace to leave."

Not everyone gets the privilege of starting a relationship with Jesus at the center. Sometimes during a relationship, one person surrenders to Jesus while the other wants nothing to do with Jesus. And when the struggle gets real, we Christians tend to get all kinds of spiritual confirmations on why we should leave our spouses. Good news, though! God has given us instruction in His word about what to do when we've given our life to Jesus, but we're convinced that we're married to Satan!

Check these verses out. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16:

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you[b] to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Heavy truth here. Paul is saying that if your spouse is happy to live with you, then you should not divorce that person. This implies that there are times when spouses will see that their husband/wife's life has changed and they won't be able to deal with it. At THAT time, it is ok to divorce because God has called us to peace. But because God has called us to peace, your spouse shouldn't want to leave the house because you're always calling him/her a "good-for-nothing heathen" who is destined for the fires of hell. Your life should scream "JESUS LOVES YOU AND SO DO I". When it does, you have a great chance of being a witness to your spouse. He or she could come to know Jesus based on the way that they see you live.

As believers, we have been given an assignment to bring people back to God. Here are four tips to help you love your spouse into the kingdom. Understand that:

1. Your spouse is not the devil. He/she is another soul in need of God's grace as you are.
2. You are not the Holy Spirit. Human tactics isn't going to produce the righteousness you want to see in your spouse.
3. Greater is He (Jesus) that is in you that he (the devil) that is in the world. God's influence flowing through you to your spouse is greater than the devil's influence on your spouse (or even you for that matter).
4. God's goodness leads us to repentance. Is your spouse seeing the goodness of God in you? Or are you making Christ unattractive with your attitude?

We love God because He first loved us. Most of the time, love needs to be shown insanely well before it is reciprocated. So make a commitment to grow in God's love and to show God's love. Then just see what happens next! 

Thanks for reading,

Jarrell