Love & Respect Book

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

[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.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

“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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

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

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.”

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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.

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

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).

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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)

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.

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

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

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

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.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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