Respectfully Yours - Leader's Kit

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.

“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 confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

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.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

Your words reveal your heart.

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

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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

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

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

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.

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

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

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

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

[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?”

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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.

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

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

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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

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.

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

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.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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.

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.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

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

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

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

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.

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.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

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)

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

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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

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

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

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

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

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

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

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)

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.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

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.

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.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.