The Love and Respect Devotional

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.

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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

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

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.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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)

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

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

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

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 equal but we are not the same.

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.

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)

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

[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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

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

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.

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

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

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

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

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

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?

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

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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

“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.

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)

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

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

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.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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.

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

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

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.

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.

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

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 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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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

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

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.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and 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).

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

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

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