Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

“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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

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

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

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 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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

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.

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

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

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.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

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

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.

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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 come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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)

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

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

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

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

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

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

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

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.