Love and Respect Coaster (6) Set

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

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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 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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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.

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

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

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)

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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.

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

“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.

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

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

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

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.

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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.

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

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 equal but we are not the same.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?”

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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.

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.

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

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

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

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

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.