Love & Respect in the Family

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

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

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

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.

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed 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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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

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

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

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

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

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

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

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.

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

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

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.

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.

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

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

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

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.

[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.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

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?

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

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.

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

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

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

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

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

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

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

As a wife, if you can start to understand how important your husband’s work is to him, you will take a giant step toward communicating respect and honor, two things that he values even more than your love.

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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.

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

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

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

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

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.

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

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

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

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