Can Your Prayer Life Be Hindered By Your Spouse If They’re Not A Believer?

Can your prayer life be hindered by your spouse if they're not a believer? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-26. You can feel free to leave a voicemail at that number. And of course, you can always email us a question.

Here's the email address, questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Peggy calling in from Mapleton, Iowa. Peggy, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to know if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, should you be able to speak in tongues?

Hey, Peggy, thank you for giving us a call. And great question. You know, we've been talking about the filling or the baptism of the Holy Spirit some on the broadcast this week. And there is a lot of confusion out there. And one of the areas of confusion is there are people in the church who teach that the gift of tongues or speaking in tongues is evidence that you are in fact filled with the Holy Spirit. And so if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you should speak in tongues.

Now the problem with this is that the Apostle Paul makes it very clear when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that tongues was just one of many spiritual gifts that God gave to the church, but that not every believer had the same gift. That's part of his argument in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. He says, look, if the whole body were an eye or a hand or a foot, where would that leave us? No, the body is healthy and great.

It grows because each part of the body has its own role, if you will. And the body builds itself up in love as each part is contributing. He says this in Ephesians chapter 4. And so I would say that the answer to your question is definitively, based on what the Apostle Paul said, no, no. Just because you're filled with the Holy Spirit or have the Holy Spirit doesn't mean that you can or ought to be speaking in tongues. The passage that I referenced there is 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 27.

And let me just read there. Now Paul says, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God is appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But he continues, earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you still a more excellent way. In other words, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you shouldn't be obligated to speak in tongues any more than you're obligated to be an apostle or a prophet or a worker of miracles or to have the gift of healing. Every single Christian ought to have is to undermine really the argument that the Apostle Paul was making there in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. And so thank you for reaching out to us, Peggy. God bless you as you continue to dig into the scriptures. Hey Peggy, thanks for listening to Core Christianity. We really do appreciate you. Let's go to Michael who's calling in from Kansas. Michael, thanks for holding on. What's your question for Adriel?

Hey there. I had called you a few days ago asking you about the other Trinity. I want to try to speed this question up because it's a little bit lengthy. When I pray, I pray individually to each one of those entities. So if I need guidance, I pray to the Holy Spirit. If I need salvation, I pray to Jesus. If I need something in my life like something created, more wealth, more patience, whatever, I pray to the Father. If I give praise and worship, then I pray to God as a whole. I was just wondering if there was any negativity for thinking that way or praying that way.

Hey Michael, thank you for that question. Of course we pray to one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. Now ordinarily I think we pray to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the mediation of Jesus Christ, our great high priest. And so we can approach the Father. We can come boldly to the throne of grace because we have Jesus as our advocate, as our high priest, and the Holy Spirit unites us to Jesus. And Jesus is praying for us. We're told in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 7, for example, and the Spirit of God also intercedes for us.

We're told by the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans. I don't think that there's anything wrong with praying to the persons of the Holy Trinity, but you have to understand, I would say what could concern me is if it's like almost approaching it like you're praying to three different gods. And the Father's going to give this because he's the Father and the Son. Realizing actually instead that the three persons of the Holy Trinity were working in concert to accomplish your salvation, to guide us, to lead us, to redeem us. And so it's important that we understand that you understand the oneness there as well without undermining the distinctness in personhood with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And again, I think ordinarily, while there's nothing wrong with praying to the Holy Spirit or praying directly to Jesus, and you see examples of this in the New Testament, you think of Stephen while he was being stoned in the book of Acts, crying out to Jesus himself, praying to Jesus. But I would say ordinarily we go to the Father, we pray to the Father in and through the Spirit by the Son or through the mediation of the Son as well.

And so I think that's the best way to approach it. And I think that that helps in terms of recognizing that we're approaching God of the Holy Trinity in prayer coming before him. And that we can do that precisely because of what Jesus has done for us. You know, Andrew, we've talked before about how important it is to have an accurate view of the Trinity because there are some heresies out there. There are some beliefs about the Trinity that are erroneous and that would actually be contrary to the Scripture that some teachers, some even denominations push in their teaching.

Yeah, there are. And there have been since the very beginning. It seems to me like one of Satan's tactics is to undermine in our thinking and our understanding who God is, who Jesus is, the person of Christ, who God is, theology proper, the doctrine of God. If he can undermine that, if he can confuse us about that, well then we run into all sorts of other problems. And so it's important for us, it's imperative for us to have a biblical understanding here. And even though you don't find that word Trinity in the Bible, it's very clearly the teaching of the Bible. When you bring together the Old and the New Testament and what we see of God revealing himself throughout redemptive history, what we get is the doctrine of the Trinity. And so, as you said, Bill, it's so important for us to understand this because there are a lot of other ideas and views out there floating around that don't honor God and aren't faithful to the Scriptures.

Well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Julia calling in from Missouri. Julia, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi. My question is if there was a young teenager who made one bad decision and went to a party and decided to give into peer pressure, take some drugs, but accidentally overdosed and passed away. Would that person, would he go to hell?

Like, how would he be judged? Julia, what a horrible and tragic situation. I don't believe, for those who are in Christ, who are united to Jesus by faith, kept in the arms, in the hands of Almighty God, I don't believe that a lapse into sin or a lapse in judgment leading into a situation like this one, giving into peer pressure and doing drugs and tragically dying as a result, I don't believe that that would sever an individual, someone who's truly born again, united to Christ, I don't believe that that would sever an individual from God, from Christ. Obviously, it's horrible and it's tragic, but our hope, our confidence has to be in the power of God to keep his own and the ability of God, even in the midst of something like that, to still keep his own. I think of someone like Samson in the Old Testament, who had a series of lapses in judgment and truly was sinning against the Lord, making poor decisions. He came truly to a heartbreaking, tragic end with the way that he died, and yet he is described as being in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11. When I think of Samson, I don't think, you know, real faithful, strong faith, I think of a guy who just lived this sort of life of contradiction and struggle, and yet it was God and his grace and his mercy that was able to keep, and did in fact keep, Samson.

And so, look, we're looking for comfort, we're longing for comfort in situations like this. We can't look into the heart of an individual to see, okay, where's this person at personally in their relationship with God? But we entrust our loved ones, each other, to the Lord, and we have the hope that the blood of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness and mercy of God, is greater than our sin. You know, the sin's like the one that you described, where an individual does maybe, you mentioned an overdose at a party, you think of somebody who gets drunk and gets behind the wheel, and there's a tragic accident, they die, they hit a tree, something like that. Even genuine believers, true believers, can fall into seasons of grievous sin.

That doesn't make it okay. That doesn't mean that there aren't consequences to us and that God doesn't discipline us. But I don't believe that those believers ever lose their justification or their salvation, but that God keeps them through Christ. And so that's what I would say to you, Julia, and just pray that the Lord is with you and comforts you in that very, very tragic and difficult situation.

Thank you for reaching out to us. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. In today's world, there are so many voices challenging the truth of scripture, challenging the truth of the resurrection. And oftentimes, as a believer, you may run up against a challenging person in your life who considers themselves to be an agnostic or an atheist and starts peppering you with questions, and you really don't know where to go and how to answer their questions.

Well, we have a resource that we know will help you with that. It's called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Yeah, this is really one of those faith builder books in terms of something that you can read that will help you have a deeper understanding of why the Christian faith is true, why you can be confident that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, that when you pray to him, you're praying to the living one, that he hears your prayers. And so I hope that you will get ahold of this resource over at corechristianity.com. It's a wonderful apologetics book. Again, it's Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ. We know it'll be a huge help to you both, as Adriel said, in bolstering strengthening your faith and also responding to some of those tough questions you might receive from other people in your life.

It's The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and you can very easily find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Well, let's go to a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners. This one is from Caitlin.

I have coworkers that have a typical secular worldview, and I'd like to know how I can respectfully work with them and still uphold my Christian views. Thank you. Have a nice day. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, this is a struggle for so many people, Caitlin. In the workplace, you realize, man, I want to be faithful to Jesus. I want to honor God with everything that I do and say, and it's clear to me that my superiors, other people that I work with, they reject the Christian faith.

Maybe they're even trying to push certain ideas onto you. I know that there are a lot of Christians right now who are really wrestling with how do I respond to the fact that my job is calling me to go to this pride festival thing or to embrace some of these ideas out there in our culture, in our society, that I think run contrary to what the Bible teaches. I think you have to walk the fine line of one, not being full of cowardice, not being ashamed of what it is that you believe, recognizing alongside of what Paul said in Romans chapter one, that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, that this is the best news in the world, that this is what our secular friends and coworkers need. It's the forgiveness of sins. It's the hope of restoration. It's the love of God and mercy of God. You don't have to be ashamed of that. I would say that's a part of who you are as a Christian, of what God has called you to, to be a witness for Christ and for his gospel.

And so you have that. You're also just called to be a good worker, a good neighbor as well. And so I think it looks like we don't need to be obnoxious about the things that we believe and sort of drive people away that way. But you should be known in the office or wherever it is that you work as someone who is full of charity, full of love, full of service, willing to go out of your way to help others around you, to do good to all people.

This is what Paul says, do good to all people, especially to those who are of the household of faith, but do good to the people there that you work with and pray for opportunities to talk about the hope that is in you as a Christian, as a believer in Jesus Christ. And when you feel pressure or temptation to do something or to embrace something that runs contrary to what you believe as a Christian, I think that's just where you have to make a stand. And that's where there can really be tension.

That's where I think the difficulty comes in. But I think choosing to say, look, this is who I am. This is what I believe. And above all else with my life, I want to honor God and I'm not going to compromise that. And you pray that people are respectful about that and recognize that and they see your charity, your love, your hard work ethic. And they come to really, I think, be curious, hopefully.

I mean, that's the hope. But at the end of the day, being unwilling to compromise, I think that's one of the big concerns that the Church has always had to wrestle with. I mean, from thinking about the book of Revelation, Revelation chapters 2 and 3, some of those churches there in Asia Minor that Jesus was addressing, they were struggling with compromise. They were beginning to let the ways of the world, the idolatrous thinking of the world, seep into their own thinking.

And Jesus had strong words for them. And so we want to be cautious here and we want to be wise and not let that in while also pursuing love and peace with all people and faithfulness to the gospel as witnesses for Christ. God bless you and be with you as you seek to honor the Lord in that difficult situation. Caitlin, thanks so much for your call. We're actually going to send you a complimentary copy of today's offer, which is The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. As you mentioned, a great resource that will be helpful to anyone who is talking to a non-Christian friend or work associate and really needs some help in answering some of those difficult questions that come in from skeptics. Again, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Well, we do receive voicemails at the core.

And here's one that came in from one of our listeners named Margie. I had a question about where God says that if the relationship of the spouses aren't right, their prayers will be hindered. Now, if one spouse is walking with the Lord as best she can or he can and the other spouse is not and not interested or maybe just struggling, one of the spouses are doing the best he or she can to be faithful to the Lord. If the spouse is faithful to the Lord and trying to walk with the Lord, will her or him prayers be hindered?

Thank you. No, I don't think that your prayers or that the spouse's prayers would be hindered. If they're seeking to be faithful to the Lord, to walk with the Lord, but they're with someone who is not willing or unwilling to walk with Christ. And there in 1 Corinthians 7, I mean, that's the question there is the Corinthians had probably written to Paul wondering, you know, how do I handle this relationship? I'm a believer, but my spouse is not a believer. And Paul's encouragement to them is, look, you stay with this person if they're willing to be with you. You don't know how God might use your Christian witness in their life. And so where he talks about prayers being hindered in the marriage relationship or where the New Testament talks about prayers being hindered in the marriage relationship is in 1 Peter 3 verse 7.

Listen to what Peter said there. Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. In other words, he's saying, look, you know what hinders our prayers in marriage? It's when we don't treat our spouses like we should. Husbands, when you don't love your wife as Christ loved the church, when you don't live with your wife in an understanding way.

And I think that this cuts both ways, really. When we are putting these roadblocks up in the relationship, sinful things that we're doing, well, that's a hindrance to our prayers because there's this tension in our relationship with this person that we live with that God has called us to love. And so if you're seeking to honor the Lord, to be faithful to God, to walk with Jesus and doing so with a clear conscience, even if this other person isn't doing that, I don't think that your prayers will be hindered. But if we are unwilling to do that or if we're sinning against our spouse, it does seem like Peter says there in 1 Peter 3 verse 7 that our prayers are hindered. That it's difficult to come to God and call upon him and pray to him with a clear conscience because there's this tension in that relationship there. And so what do we need to do?

We need to resolve the tension. You go to your spouse and you ask for forgiveness. You confess your sins.

And oftentimes, I mean, this I think applies more broadly than just to the marriage relationship. We think about those things that we do, those roadblocks that we put up in our own lives, really, between us and the Lord and good and true communion with God. Our own sins, frankly, the things that we do that we ought to turn from and repent of.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians when he's talking about the Lord's Supper, judging ourselves and confessing those sins to the Lord so that we wouldn't be judged by God. It's those things, I think, that hinder our prayer lives. And so a part of having a healthy prayer life is really interesting.

I don't think a lot of people talk about this, but a part of having a healthy prayer life is having healthy relationships with the people around us, giving and receiving forgiveness, confessing our sins, walking in the light and not putting up those roadblocks, if you will, those hindrances before ourselves in prayer. And so God help you and God help all of us to do that. And thank you, Margie, for your question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We do receive emails. And if you have a question for us, here is our email address. It's questions at corechristianity.com.

Here's one from David. He says, is Jesus a product of redemption or did he help plan redemption in the beginning? Well, if what you mean by that question, is Jesus a product of redemption, did Jesus need to be redeemed as though he were a sinner or something like that, the answer would be no.

And I think it's just strange to talk about Jesus as a product anyway. We're talking about the eternal son of God. He's not a created being. He's the creator.

We're creatures. We're the, quote, unquote, products of God's creative genius. And we're the recipients of his redemption, that plan of redemption that I do believe was enacted, if you will, by the persons of the Holy Trinity. That this was something that they had planned and purposed from all eternity to redeem sinners through the Father sending his son into the world and giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the proper way to talk about Jesus is not as the product of redemption, but truly as the one who brought it about as our redeemer, as our savior, as our Lord. And it does seem like there's a lot of confusion out there today with regard to the person of Christ. Who is the son of God? Who is Jesus? Let me just say this. There's no more important answer that you could give to a question than the right answer to that question.

Getting that question wrong has eternal ramifications. Jesus is the eternal son of God. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-The-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.