1 True Talks
1 True Talks
The Power of Love and Respect: Biblical Principles for Thriving Relationships
What if the balance of love and respect could be the key to unlocking the healthiest relationships you've ever had? We will discuss the essential dynamics that make relationships thrive, based on timeless biblical principles. In this heartwarming episode, Renee draws wisdom from Corinthians and Philippians, illustrating that love is not just an emotion, but a deliberate choice and action. She shares actionable steps on how to cultivate patience, kindness, and selflessness to ensure your loved ones feel valued and cherished daily.
Respect is the other vital pillar Renee emphasizes, crucial for building trust and mutual understanding. Borrowing insights from Philippians, she discusses the importance of honoring others' opinions, feelings, and boundaries. Learn how setting the right intentions can prevent one-sided relationships and lead to fulfilling, healthy connections. Whether you're nurturing a relationship with a partner, friend, or family member, this episode provides the tools you need to experience the love and respect you truly deserve. Tune in for profound insights and practical tips to enrich every relationship in your life.
Hi, I'm Renee Rochell, the founder and president of One True Match. I'm here to help you find and cultivate the love of your life. For over a decade, I've dedicated my life to the importance, purpose and dynamic of human relationships. My team and I are disciplined by faith, love and integrity to help our clients find the quality relationship they've always dreamt of. Each week, I will be sharing the tools and tips I've learned that have rooted my success as a matchmaker with other leaders around the world. Hello, loves, welcome back. I hope you have been listening to the last several podcasts and heck, last several years of relationship advice.
Renee Richel:Today, we're going to dive into love and respect, which is a key ingredient in the cornerstone of strong relationships. That is what we're going to dive into today, and I want to get right into it because I feel like there's so many valuable points that I definitely want to share with you today. So we're going to talk about something that's fundamental in every relationship, whether it's with your partner, your friend, your family, your colleague that's the balance of love and respect in all areas of your life. This balance isn't just important. It's the cornerstone of all healthy relationships and it's deeply rooted in biblical principles. Without love, relationships can feel empty and distant and lonely. Without respect, they can become strained and very toxic. But when you have both love and respect, you're building a strong foundation, a cornerstone that can support and sustain any relationship, just as God intended. So if you're taking notes, this is going to be tool number one is defining love and respect in relationships.
Renee Richel:What does love look like? That is a question I get, I feel like, all the time, and it sounds very simple, but it's so much deeper than that. Love is more than just a feeling of emotion. It is a choice and an action. None of us have to be in love, so we have to always remember that, that we choose to want to be in love and we need to work on that relationship. In Corinthians 1, 13, 4 through 7, we're given the beautiful picture of what love looks like. Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not dishonest to others, it is not self-seeking and it is not easily angry. It keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It's always. It protects us, it always entrusts also hope and also perseverance.
Renee Richel:In all relationships, whether with a spouse, a friend or a family member. This kind of love shows care, compassion and commitment. It's about making the other person feel valued and cherished, not just in words, but also in everyday actions. So, whether you are a words of affirmation, an acts of service, a physical touch, know your partners just as much as your own, so that it's an equal alignment for maximum success. What does respect look like? What does respect look like Without respect? We all know that any relationship will fall.
Renee Richel:Respect, on the other hand, is about honoring the other person individually, their opinions and their boundaries. It's about listening when they speak, valuing their feelings and treating them with dignity. In Philippians 2, 3 through 4, it says do nothing out of selfish ambition or gain content or vain content, sorry. Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking at your own interest, but each other's interest together. This kind of respect is the foundation in trust and mutual understanding in any relationship, so remember. And mutual understanding in any relationship, so remember, always start every relationship and seek for love and respect right out of the gate. Sometimes people come to us all the time and ask what questions do we ask? And I'm like, think of the basic things to admire, to look for and know that you deserve the simplest things like love and respect from the beginning. And if you set that respect from the beginning, and if you set that intention from the beginning or every day we have a new day you start it from this day forward. It's incredible what the Lord will do with surrounding people around you and the people that are in front of you.
Renee Richel:Number two would be the balance of love and respect. Love without respect can lead to a one-sided relationship where one person feels taken advantage of. How many times has that happened, maybe in our past? Relationships, again, whether it be friendship, whether it be love or whether it be something more. On the other hand, respect without love can make a relationship feel cold and distant, like you're just going through the motions without a real connection, and Ephesians 5, 33 beautifully encapsulates this balance. However, each one of you also must love his wife and he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Renee Richel:This verse highlights the power, powerful truth that, as in a marriage which, again, marriage is a choice. So you have to work through this verse to remember what you're choosing to jump into when it comes to a relationship and by this extension, in all relationships, love and respect are both essential on both sides. You know, I think another area we talk about is there's two sides to every coin, right, and without one another the foundation starts to crumble. So when we're thinking about two sides of the coin, love and respect are both sides from the cornerstone we're talking about that needs to be strong and healthy in a relationship for it to grow and build everybody. I cannot tell you the amount of relationships that come to us and why I believe not only our foundation of One True Match is so successful, but also our clients are in the mutual agreement, which is kind of like our biblical truths we read, is that understanding that we're both going to be there for each other through this journey and that love is a choice, and that the people and the clients that come to us and the matches that we do find they're both making a commitment independently, not only to themselves to know their true identity, but then also wanting to seek and understand the curiosity of the mate that they're putting in their life, not only for today but also in the future, forever. And that is one of the biggest foundational tools that we have for One True Match is that we stay with our singles to then work with them through their journey of their identity, to discover who God has designed for them to meet, and then work with our couples as they grow, thrive and build their foundation together so that, when they are in the utopia of love, they are continuously growing each quarter, each year, to feel like they are enriched in all things relationships because of these little tools and tips that we're sharing with you on these podcasts. So remember, it is definitely something that you have to continuously, continuously practice, preach and share with others.
Renee Richel:First and always, communication and kindness and patience are huge. Right In 1 Corinthians, it teaches us even when we're frustrated, speak from a place of love. I hope that you all just heard that. Remember always speak from a place of love. It's that you all just heard that Remember always speak from a place of love. It's that famous saying treat your neighbors as you would want to be treated. And if you're in a moment where you're feeling frustrated or angry or impatient or anxious, take a pause, take a break, take a breath, do whatever you need to, but come back in a calming and loving matter with all of your heart and love, not only for yourself, out of respect for your own self, but also for your partner, knowing that nobody's perfect and that every moment, you have an opportunity to shift the mindset of any scenario.
Renee Richel:Second, actively listen. This shows respect, which is exactly what we're talking about Really hear what the other person is saying before you respond. I feel like we've talked about this on so many podcasts, but it's something we often forget. So we need that reminder of what respect is really about, which is not thinking about what you're going to say while somebody is still speaking, because you is not thinking about what you're going to say while somebody is still speaking because you're not actually actively listening. And third, be willing to compromise that word compromise that everybody always, I feel like, gets a little nervous about, or they don't like that word, or they want to run from that word. Well, when you compromise, it doesn't mean you're giving up everything. It means that you're going to work towards a common goal, to come up with a win-win so everybody's happy, instead of it always feeling like it's one-sided, that somebody's getting something and the other isn't, which builds resent, which is the opposite of respect.
Renee Richel:Love often means putting the other person's needs ahead of your own, but respect means making sure your own needs are acknowledged as well. So you know it is something that it's a dance to learn, and if you're not able to do it with your own circle of friends and your family to begin, you're not able to be in a loving relationship that God has designed for you. So many people will come to us and say I just can't meet that person. Why? Well, today is a crazy world when it comes to dating. But it also might be because you're not prepared yourself in practicing what you preach or what you want in your own relationships that are surrounding you. Number three, if you're writing this down own relationships that are surrounding you. Number three, if you're writing this down, is applying this balance in all relationships, romantic relationships, no-transcript.
Renee Richel:The key word is happiness here. How do we get happiness if we're not actually thinking about a happy, healthy relationship? I think too many times people just fall in love quick on lust and feeling, and then the happiness eventually starts to dwindle because they've never actually worked on the stepping stones or the cornerstones we're saying today to build that solid foundation. It's definitely about being affectionate, being patient and being supportive, reflecting on love described in 1 Corinthians, but it's also about giving your partner the space and respect they need to be themselves. It's healthy to have time apart so that you have time together to share things right that are a little bit different, and to have different conversations and things that you can come back to, to be able to, you know, refresh and also, you know, have that time apart, because absence always makes the heart grow fonder, where then you're reconnected in a way that continues to build that spark.
Renee Richel:You know, respect in this context means valuing their opinion, acknowledging their feelings and honoring their boundaries. Remember, friendship and family is also important. Do you show your friends that you respect their time and opinions? Do you express love to your family members in ways that make them feel appreciated? And think about this long and hard, because how many friendships, either over a course of seasons and time, have either dwindled, faded because of these things, or it hasn't been an equal relationship on the other side. In Philippians, we're reminded to value others above ourselves. That's respect right there, and to like dive deeper into that with others is the perfect way that shows love. Balancing love and respect in relationships is what keeps them strong and healthy over time, and James 1.19 offers practical wisdom for all relationships. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Listening is an act of respect and speaking with patience and love is a reflection of our own self-care and love for others.
Renee Richel:To summarize everything that we're talking about with love and respect today, and there's so many books that I would highly recommend I will definitely put in our notes at the end of this podcast to read Love and Respect and Boundaries. It really helped myself, it helps our team and our teachings. We use it and it's definitely I always tell everybody with some of these incredible books to have the seam instead of just in your audible read. It's nice to actually have the book as a reminder when you walk past those seams of love and respect and care and spaghetti and waffles, all those things that I recommend always to remind you of all these little nuggets on a daily basis when you are maybe in your kitchen or your library or whatever you see on a regular basis, to remind you in those moments where you need it most. So in closing, I would love for you to think about love and respect. That are two pillars, the cornerstone that holds us in every healthy relationship. When we show love, we build connection and trust, just as God has shown us, love. When we show respect, we build a foundation of mutual understanding and dignity, reflecting the humility and care that Christ calls us to do. Together, we can create the balance that every relationship needs to thrive.
Renee Richel:This week and many weeks ahead, I encourage you to reflect on your relationships. Ask yourself am I balancing love and respect? Is there room for improvement? And take the steps that make the difference to work towards that, whether it's by listening more closely, by being more patient and simply expressing appreciation for the people in your life. How many times do we love it when we get just a simple text or a simple thank you or a simple note of some sort how grateful your friends are for your relationship. It feels good. Tell them that, repeat that and remember, if you have those relationships that you're not doing that. Work on figuring out why, so that you have these communications, these conversations, to have a love and respectful relationship for all practices and relationships going forward.
Renee Richel:I hope you have found these tools and tips beneficial and helpful. I love having these chats with you and really love hearing from you, so I encourage you to subscribe, to share, to send us a message and ask us the questions you really want to know when it comes to love, relationships, life, all things, so that we can make sure we're talking about the topics that matter most to you. Tune in every Thursday when we have more topics of conversations to share with you, and next week we're going to talk about faith in tandem how to strengthen your relationship through shared spiritual practices. I can't wait till our next talk and I hope you have a blessed week. It's been another great talk on this episode of One True Talks by Renee Richel. I look forward to our next chat. Please write in your questions and comments so I can be sure to talk about whatever it is you want to discuss in our next upcoming episode. Lots of love, god bless, xoxo.