Mother & Son Course Workbook (Download)

God is good and wants what is best for us.

“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.“

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.

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

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

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.”

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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”?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

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)

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

“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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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).

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

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

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

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

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

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.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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

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.

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

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.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

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

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

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.

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

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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