Love and Respect Coaster (6) Set

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

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?

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

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.

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

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.

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

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)

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

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

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

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. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

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

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)

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.

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

“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.“

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

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

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

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.

[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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.”

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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

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

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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.

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.

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

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.

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.