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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

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

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

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.

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

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.

“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.“

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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)

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.

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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 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).

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.

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

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

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

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

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.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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 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.

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Your words reveal your heart.