Love and Respect Coaster (6) Set

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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.

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

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

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

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

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

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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)

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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

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.

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).

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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

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.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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).

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

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

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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

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.