The Love and Respect Devotional

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

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)

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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.

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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

“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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

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

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.

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

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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)

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

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

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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

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

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.

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