Respectfully Yours - Study Guide (10 pack)

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

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.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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)

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

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

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

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)

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

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)

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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.

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

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 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!)

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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)

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!

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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

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.

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

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

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

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

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.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.