Love and Respect Coaster (6) Set

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

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 husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be 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 might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

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

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

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”?

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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?

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)

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

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

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

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

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

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

“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.“

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

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?”

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)

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.

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

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

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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.

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

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

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

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

“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.

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

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