Amor y Respeto - Cuaderno De Trabajo: Videoconferencia

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

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

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

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

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)

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?”

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

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.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!)

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

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

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)

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)

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.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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

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.

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.”

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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)

A wife has one driving need: to feel loved. When that need is met, she is happy. A husband has one driving need: to feel respected. When that need is met, he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy with conflict.

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

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

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.

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

“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.

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

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

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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.

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

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

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

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.

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

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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

“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.

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.