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

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.

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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).

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

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?

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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”?

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

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

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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.

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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.”

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

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.

“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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

“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.“

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.

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!

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

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

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. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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?”

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.

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.

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.

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