Motivating Your Man God’s Way: Applying One Word That Energizes Him to Love

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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

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

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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

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

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”?

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

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.

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)

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

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

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?”

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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.

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

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

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

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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

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.

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)

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

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.

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

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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, but wrong at the top of your voice.”

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

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

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

“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.“

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 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.

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.

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