The Illumination Project Journal (10 Pack)

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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)

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

[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?”

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

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).

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

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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

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

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).

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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!)

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

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

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

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!

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

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

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

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

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

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

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

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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

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

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.

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