Motivating Your Man God’s Way: Applying One Word That Energizes Him to Love

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

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

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.

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

“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.

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

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

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.

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

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

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

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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

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

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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).

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

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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”?

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

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

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.

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.

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.”

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

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)

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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

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.

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.

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to 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.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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