Podcast 60: Is He Really Godly? 4 Questions to Find Out

He says he’s a Christian… but is he truly walking with God? In this episode, I’m giving you 4 powerful, heart-revealing questions to ask a man early on — before the chemistry clouds your clarity. You’ll learn how to spark deep conversations without turning it into an awkward interview, so you can discern if he’s the real deal: a man after God’s own heart. This is about protecting your peace, building your confidence, and calling in the kind of love that honors the Lord and lights your soul on fire. Let’s go, Sis. 💫💍 

Transcript

Michelle Joiner (00:01.134)
Hey, hey, sis, one of the most delicious, wonderful, satisfying, soul, life-giving things that you can do for yourself is to choose to be with someone that loves the Lord and is obedient to His word and respects and honors Scripture and wants you to obey the Lord as well.

and wants you to be presented as a bride to Christ. Like that is gonna be one of the most wonderful blessings to crown your life if you choose to be with a man like that. Not only is it what we're called to as believers not to be unequally yoked, it is also the way that we can bless our lives and bless our legacy, whether that's our children,

or the other people that God brings into your life as a couple. The way that you can serve those people best, the way that you can preserve your legacy and preserve your peace is to choose a man that is someone after God's own heart. Now, if you're tuning in to me as the Christian dating coach, I'm going to assume that that is what you want, that you want to be with a godly.

man. So then the question becomes, how do you discern that you're with a godly man? How do you discern that the man that you're talking to isn't someone who says he's a Christian, but actually walks in newness of life? I'm going to give you some very specific things that you can ask the guys that you're talking to that will help you discern this.

I'm the Christian dating coach. So what I would love for you is to be able to discern and discern early on. I don't mean like discern months and months and months and years into the relationship. I mean early on before there's any commitment, before there's any, any true loss on your part.

Michelle Joiner (02:26.741)
discern early on if he is a man after God's own heart. Because I believe that if he's not, that doesn't mean he's a waste of your time. And that's truly one of the first steps of this. I would encourage you to adopt a mindset that nobody is a waste of your time. I would like to present to you that God brings people into your life

to serve and to encourage unto good works and to shine the light of the gospel into their lives. So I would encourage you to get rid of the notion that men that aren't husband material are a waste of time. I don't think that's kind and I don't think that's loving. I think it's important to have agape love for everyone that God brings into your life and

to see it as an opportunity to be a witness and a blessing to them.

and for you.

Allow every moment to be a moment where you can practice talking to men effectively and practice building your confidence. Let every moment be a moment to practice confidence and connection. Where you get to the point, I know for me when I was single, I would go swing dancing.

Michelle Joiner (04:03.06)
like almost every day. I loved it so much I would go swing dancing almost every day. I had a lot of interest so I loved playing board games and I would go play board games with people. I was always meeting people and always using every opportunity to practice connection and build my confidence where I just felt like I was unstoppable and it reached the point where

I was just frequently telling myself that men love talking to me and I had this great positive mindset and assurance in myself that I could call in and attract and captivate. And I knew that my creating that for myself, that captivating energy for myself and that confidence would pay off and it did.

Because when I met Caleb, because see, that's the thing. You don't want to wait until you're in front of your Caleb or your great handsome godly man and you haven't practiced being captivating and connecting and built the confidence that men love to have. You don't want to wait until then. You want to have build all of that before you meet your guy, your amazing godly guy, so that when you meet him, what happened with Caleb,

was after our third phone call, he was saying, love you. We were able to, what I do, what I'm gonna teach you today, which is quickly discern if the other person is godly and discern if the other person has a heart for scripture. We were able to quickly do that. We were able to quickly connect. We were able to.

quickly create chemistry and be captivating to you. And he said, I love you in our third phone conversation and asked me to be his girlfriend and be in a committed exclusive relationship three weeks after we met each other. Now all of that happened because I had been practicing because I, when I met other men, I didn't think of them as a waste of time. I thought of them as an opportunity to share the gospel.

Michelle Joiner (06:21.939)
and to practice. And that's what I encourage you to do. Now, once you've done that and you're kind of with a man like Caleb, if you meet men and you follow what I say to follow, which is to flirt pure and to be vulnerable and to create intimacy, if you follow what I say to follow, you will quickly be able to tell and not be afraid to ask if he's a Christian. And if you're having

the kind of conversations that I coach my clients and I teach them how to have, after the first couple of initial introductory questions, you'll get a sense of if he's a Christian or not, and you'll have the confidence to just ask him, are you a Christian? So here's the thing, when he says yes or no, that doesn't solve all of your problems, because then you want to learn, okay, well,

Tell me more. want to know. You say you're a Christian, but I want to know more. But you want to know more without making it into an interview and without killing the mood because every relationship needs that spark and electricity and sizzle and chemistry. And if you start having very interview like questions,

you're going to kill the mood and he's going to feel like he's just someone that is going to that you're going to take a box next to and you're going to lose the connection and intimacy. So I have three questions for you today that you can ask to discern early on what type of man you have in front of you. These questions are powerful and they're deep.

So what you want to do is ask them in a moment where that's appropriate. So for instance, it wouldn't be a text message. It would possibly be a phone call, maybe even better a video call, like a Google Meet or a FaceTime call. You'd want it to be some type of video phone call would be best, or in person. Now if you absolutely can do nothing else,

Michelle Joiner (08:43.951)
Just make this on a phone call. Do not do this by text. Text is for flirting and light banter and maybe logistics, but texting isn't for heavy conversations. And that's what I'm suggesting you do. So it's not going to feel like an interview. It's going to feel like I want to know you. I want to know you. And you're kind of in this moment of his heart being open.

and the Holy Spirit is present and you're just getting to know each other. So that's the spirit that I want you to ask these questions in. So here's one of the first questions that I think you should ask.

What do you do when scripture challenges what you want, like in the moment? Like you're in the moment, there's something that you want, but scripture says something different. Like, what do you do? Boom. This question is so big because it assumes that

There's an inherent respect in this question that you're assuming that he knows scripture. You're assuming that there's a hidden underlying thing. I know you're a man of integrity and I'm just, I want you to tell me, right? There's an inherent respect in the way I phrase the question. What do you do when scripture challenges what you want in the moment? It's not quite.

but it's sort of a leading question, right? So it assumes a lot and it's very respectful in tone. But the answer to this question is just gonna be so valuable for you because if he says something like, know, I think the Bible's a really good book, but I really don't have a whole lot of time to read it. That's helpful to know.

Michelle Joiner (10:49.262)
If he says, I think that the Bible is a really good book, but I think it's more suggestive. Like it's a good book, but it doesn't apply to everything in modern day life. So I don't think that we need to, it's a book that was written thousands of years ago. It doesn't know anything about our modern life. If he says anything like that, that's helpful to you. Now, if he,

says, I know what the Bible says, but you know, God will forgive me. That's helpful to you. You see what I mean? Like this question is going to give you so many answers and save you so much headache and time because he's going to ask your question. You're going to know what type of guy he is and it's going to help you. Now, you might find that his heart is open here.

And he says something amazing, like, you know, I feel like God will empower me to obey him even if it's something that I want. Or he may say something like, if someone, I'll give you an example. If someone were to ask me, what do you do when scripture challenges what you want in the moment? You know what I'd say?

I'd say I would pray that God would change my desires, that God would change me so that the things I want are the things in the Bible. Right. And so so you're going to get all kinds of answers, but keep your heart open, keep your heart full of love. This isn't an interview. This is you getting to know him and you thinking you pray about it you decide you talk to your mentors, you talk to me if I'm your coach.

You talk to the people that you trust, say, this is what he said. But now you have really good data because if you don't ask this question or the other questions I'm going to give you, you're not going to have enough data to discern early on. So here's another question straight up. I want you to ask this. I have a particular client that I'm thinking of that asked this question. It was really, really helpful. And it sort of was like, whoa, like, whoa, we are on a different page.

Michelle Joiner (13:14.202)
So the question is, what does obedience to Christ mean to you in the view of the gospel of grace?

So that was kind of like a preachy question. let's break it down. You would say, what does the gospel of grace mean to you?

as it relates to obedience to Christ. Like that might be a more natural way of saying it, but you can like play around with it. like I said, you asked this question in the moment of connection and

So it might come out, what does obedience to Christ mean to you? I mean, like in terms of like the gospel of grace, like just let it come out natural in your own words. Because if you ask this question, you're gonna get some answers on doctrine. And it's sort of like what I was saying before, in that some people really just think that the Bible is not meant to be followed literally. And so you'll get that answer from him.

You'll get the answer from him. So you want to ask this question. You want to hear his question, his doctrine on grace, whether or not he believes that obedience to Christ is not important because I can just ask for forgiveness. So you want to ask this question early on because it's a really good doctrinal question and it will separate you from the people who believe differently from you. The other question I think that you should ask, I know I said I was going to give

Michelle Joiner (14:53.67)
But I'm going to give four questions because you're going to want to ask him what ministry in the church or ministry in general means to him, whether or not he thinks that's important, whether or not he believes that we're, as believers, called to minister and serve. You want to ask him, how do you want to serve in a future family situation? Ask him what he believes about ministry and service.

tell you a lot about what he thinks about the church and the role that it's going to play in his life. You you're going to want to ask him like, are you going to church? you know, like how important is church to you? And you'll find that a lot of guys respond to this really positively and it'll be a really good way for you to praise him and say, I respect you. I respect you for loving the Lord that much. And we'll give you that opportunity just to

to make him feel like a man and shower him with honey words in that moment. Okay, so like I said, I had one more question for you and that is, what does spiritual leadership and marriage mean to you? And this is more honestly a more marriage question. Like you're essentially saying, what does marriage look like to you? But then also what does the role of

the Bible and the church play in our marriage? And specifically, how do you plan to lead our marriage or a future marriage with God spiritually?

And I think this is going to be very challenging for most men.

Michelle Joiner (16:39.554)
It's okay if he doesn't know, but how he responds is going to tell you a lot. You know, he might say something like, I don't know, I'm just going to have to pray that God would strengthen me to do it. He might have to say that he doesn't know that he's never thought about it before. Right. He might have to he might say something beautiful like the Bible is going to be the cornerstone of my future family.

and we're gonna read the word together as a family every day. You may say something beautiful like that, but listen, sis, ask these questions. Start these conversations with him. Go deep with him. And here's the beautiful thing. I promise you that if you go deep with these questions and you connect on this level, on this deeper level where you're not just talking about what you bought at the mall.

last Saturday, you too will become more bonded and more connected. Because I want you to be giving your answers to these questions. Like this is a conversation. This isn't an interview. So you share yourself your answers to these questions and it will bond the two of you together. Because if he is the type of man that is a man after God's own heart, he's looking for a woman who fears the Lord.

So you answer these questions, he's gonna fall in love with you too.

Sound good. All right. So I hope that was super helpful for you. Listen, if you're getting a lot out of this podcast, I would love it if you would give me a five star review, recommend it to a friend, write me, write me a review if you're on if you're on one of the apps that can actually take a written review. If you can't just leave five star rating. And I love if you do that, because this gets the message out to other women. There is a hunger.

Michelle Joiner (18:40.431)
for support for single Christian women. And that's what I'm here to do. Yeah? Let's get you married, sis.