Motivating Your Man God’s Way (Book Set and Free CD)

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.

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.

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

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.

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

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

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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 spouse has a need only you can fill.

“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.“

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

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.

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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

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

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.

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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

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.

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

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.

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.

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

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

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.

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

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

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

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

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

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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.

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

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.

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

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.

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.

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

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

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

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

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

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

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)