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

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

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

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

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

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.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

“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.“

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?

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

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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)

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

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.

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

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

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

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

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

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

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

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

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.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

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

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

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.

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

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

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)

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

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

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration, or anger, but you always have a choice.

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.

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.

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

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

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

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