Motivating Your Man God's Way: Discover One Word that Energizes Him to Love

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

“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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?”

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!

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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.

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

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

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

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.

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).

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)

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

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 a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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

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

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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

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

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

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.

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

“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.“

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

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.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.