Love and Respect Wife + Logo Mug

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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

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.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

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

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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

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)

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

Your words reveal your heart.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.”

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

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.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

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

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.

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.

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

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

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

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.

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

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.

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!)

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.“

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.

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

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

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”