I am twenty-nine years old and have fought to make my marriage work in spite of various difficulties. About fourteen months ago, my husband and I accepted Christ as our personal Savior, and that has been a big blessing in my home. My husband has changed a lot for the good, but there are still times when he loses control and says offensive words, even though we are going to church together and he speaks to God in a beautiful way. This confuses me and makes me feel distressed.
Dear Friend,
Congratulations on your wise decision to accept Christ and to follow Him! We are happy to hear about the positive changes in your home, and we encourage you to pray and study the Bible so that you can continue to learn more about God’s perfect plan for your life.
Your question is a good one. Why does your husband still lose his temper at home even though he has a personal relationship with God?
When you asked God to forgive your sins, He was able to do it because His only Son, Jesus Christ, paid the penalty for your sins when He died on the cross. All you had to do was ask God the Father to forgive you, and the forgiveness that you received in response was instant. You didn’t have to work for it or deserve it. God forgave you, and you became like a brand-new person. The Apostle Paul taught that when we follow Christ, the old is gone and the new has come.(1) This is called salvation.
However, after salvation, after being made new, and after being completely forgiven, we have to go on living. And living brings more trials and temptations, and more opportunities to sin. Those challenges do not go away just because we have accepted Christ. So your husband continues to have a problem with losing his temper, and you may continue to struggle against some of your own temptations. But if you stay close to God by praying and studying the Bible daily, you will gradually become more like Christ and less like the way you were before. It is a process called sanctification, and it is certainly not instant.
You have expected your husband to be instantly holy and without sin, but that is unrealistic. Both of you will sin, and both of you will need to ask God daily to forgive you for the ways that you have failed Him that day. Each day there should be less and less temptation, and each day it should be easier to resist the temptation to sin.
Many people say that the church is full of hypocrites because the people who follow Christ still have sin in their lives. What they don’t understand is that church people are not perfect, but are actively involved in a process that will help them become more and more like Christ. There will always be a few who are truly hypocrites, but the majority are just human beings who are following after the only One who is perfect.(2)
We wish you the best,
Linda
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1 2Co 5:17
2 Mt 5:48