Conference Notebook - Digital Download (Old)

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

We are equal but we are not the same.

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

If husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

“You can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice.”

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.