Speak Your Mind

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)

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

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.

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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.

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.

“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.“

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

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

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

“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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

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

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)

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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 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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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