I can point to the moment that my husband “became a Christian.” A few months earlier he’d cheated on me for the last time, and I’d left him.

I’d just met Jesus and fallen in love with Him, and my new relationship with God was a huge turn-off for my cheating husband . . . until he was faced with the reality of the distinct difference between my joy in the Lord and his miserable, cheating existence.

He wanted what I had. So he took it – by proxy.

I didn’t know it at the time (and, truly, only God can really know), but in retrospect, his interest in God could simply have been his last available tactic to lure me back in so that he wouldn’t lose. But, whatever the reason, he did seem to change. He talked differently, he behaved differently, he spent money differently, he ate differently. To everyone who knew him, he looked like a different person.

And it worked. He got his family back. But it didn’t take more than a few months before he fit his old character into his new way of life – but now, all backed up by Bible verses.

It was a masked transition – selfishness and control masked as righteousness in Christ. I was like a live frog who, placed in a pot of cool water being warmed up slowly on the stove, doesn’t jump out, not realizing how hot the water is getting - just staying there until it dies. That was me.

Thankfully I’m not actually a frog, and I did eventually (years later) realize that the water was getting pretty hot, and, when I did, I wondered “How did I get here?” and “Who is this man who claims to be my godly husband?”

Is he a Christian? I wanted to know.

People say that only God knows our hearts and whether we are truly his, but the Bible has some pretty poignant guidance for us on this topic:

• “Anyone born of God does not continue to sin” (1 John 5: 18)

• “Anyone who rejects this instruction [to avoid sexual immorality] does not reject a human being but God” (1 Thessalonians 4: 8)

• “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness” (2 Timothy 2: 19)

• “Evildoers will go from bad to worse” (2 Timothy 3: 13)

• “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him” (Titus 1: 16)

• “You must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people” (1 Corinthians 5: 11)

• “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6: 43-45)

• “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5: 8)

• “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7: 21)

As a humble follower of Jesus, you might apply these verses to yourself first (so you can take the log out of your own eye first, right?), but the truth is that, although we all sin (even as Christians), someone with Christian character would never be described as bearing bad fruit, going from bad to worse, or embracing wickedness. If you’re honest with yourself, you truly love God, your heart is in the right place, you recognize sin in yourself and turn from it, and you have some pretty good fruit. (I know, hard to admit at the risk of sounding self-righteous - but humility and humiliation are not the same.)

And, if you’re again honest with yourself . . . REALLY honest . . . brutally honest: your spouse isn’t making the grade. (I know, that’s hard to admit, too. After all, you don’t want to speak badly of them or come across as arrogant or self-righteous.) But if your spouse isn’t displaying Christian character, it is right to question it.

Speaking of Christian character, it’s important to recognize that there is a difference between Christian behavior and Christian character. There are a lot of people that can make their behavior look Christian when they need to (helping people out, tithing, praying, doing Bible studies, raising their hands during worship).

But at other times, their behavior is . . .  well, their behavior is more like this:

And, if it’s a pattern, it’s a problem.

How does the Bible say we are to treat those who claim to be believers but by their actions are not?

• “do not even eat with such people” (1 Corinthians 5: 11)

• “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Matthew 18: 17)

• “be wise enough to judge” (1 Corinthians 6: 5)

• “hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5: 5)

• “be kept safe from unbelievers” (Romans 15: 31)

• “stand firm and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5: 1)

• “keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us” (2 Thess. 3:6)

• “Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed” (2 Thess. 3:14)

Additionally, as you read through Scripture, you can model your life after the way that Jesus behaved toward those who claimed to be righteous. [You can read about that here]

Those are all reasonable responses to someone who is causing harm.

In the end, it doesn’t matter much whether you get a definitive answer as to whether your spouse is actually Christian, because you don’t need to base your behavior toward them on whether they are a Christian or not. You simply need to do the natural and leave the super up to God. (click the link to learn what it means.)

As I think back to why I wanted an answer, it was because, in my mind, if my husband was a Christian, then there was hope – hope for his character to change and hope for our marriage. Eventually, I had to put my hope solely in God’s character and not in my husband’s. And then I was free.

Have some questions about your relationship?

Hope isn’t found in our situation changing; hope is found in our situation

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