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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

[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?”

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)

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.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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.”

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

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

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

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.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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.

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.