220 Cultivating Healthy Family Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman

220. Cultivating Healthy Family Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

1 Peter 4:8 (NIV) "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. How can a thriving, intimate marriage become our reality?

2. What are practical ways we can discover and speak each of our children's love languages?

3. What have you observed to be the best seeds to sow in  children's youth, in hopes of cultivating their character and pointing them toward the Lord?

Gary Chapman, Ph.D.—author, speaker, pastor, and counselor—has a passion for people, and for helping them form lasting relationships. Chapman is a well-known marriage counselor and director of marriage seminars. The 5 Love Languages® is one of Chapman’s most popular titles, topping various bestseller charts for years, selling over thirteen million copies, and has been on the New York Times best-sellers list continuously since 2007. Chapman has been directly involved in real-life family counseling for more than 30 years, and his nationally syndicated radio programs air nationally on Moody Radio Network and over 400 affiliate stations. For more information visit www.5lovelanguages.com

 

Attend a 5 Love Languages Event

 

Other Episodes on The Savvy Sauce featuring Dr. Gary Chapman:

5 Love Languages with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Child Became a Teenager with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Friendships Heal Racial Divides with Dr. Clarence Shuler and Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Francie Hinrichsen's Episode on The Savvy Sauce:

Episode 132 Pursuing Your God-Given Dream with Francie Hinrichsen

 

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

 

5 Traits of a Healthy Family

Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Child Became a Teenager

Five Love Languages

The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers

A Teen's Guide to the 5 Love Languages

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Dream, Build, Grow: A Female's Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business by Francie Hinrichsen

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:17] <music>

Laura Dugger: If you are looking to start a business or side hustle but you're not sure how to begin, I want to encourage you to pick up your copy of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female's Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business. You can find it at foundingfemalesco.com. 

You're probably already familiar with today's returning guest, Dr. Gary Chapman. He is best known for his work with the 5 Love Languages, but he also has written resources on many other topics that are so beneficial.

Today, we're going to be focusing on lessons from one of his books, 5 Traits of a Healthy Family. 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Chapman.

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, thank you, Laura. It's great to be back with you again. [00:01:17] 

Laura Dugger: I'd love to hear some of your personal experience. So going back to when you and Karolyn were raising your children, Shelley and Derek, you had one unique request from a young man named John. So will you share that story with us?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yes. John had graduated from the University of North Carolina and had moved to Winston Salem, where we live. And for the summer, he had worked helping, volunteering in our church. But at the end of the summer, he had a job as a schoolteacher. And he came to me and he said, he said, "Gary, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic." And he said, "I really don't know what a healthy family looks like." And he said, "I wonder if you would allow me to move in and live with you all this year so that I could just observe what a healthy family looks like." [00:02:17] 

Well, Laura, I took a deep breath and I said what any wise husband would say, "Well, John, let me talk with Karolyn about that." So I shared the idea with Karolyn and she kind of liked it. And I said, "Really? You think that would be okay?" She said, "I think it would be good." And I said, "Well, what about the kids?" And she said, "Well, let's just talk to the kids about it." We had a conversation with our kids and they thought it would be good to have a big brother in the house. 

So I said, "Well, let's pray about it. So we prayed for a couple of days and then we agreed, "Okay, let's give it a try." I said to her, "Well, honey, where is he going to sleep? We've only got three bedrooms and they're already full." She said, "Well, the basement is just open. We could put a wall down there and put a door in and he could have he could sleep... that'd be his room." I said, "Well, okay." So we did. 

John lived with us for a whole year and just was a part of the family. And we made him a part of the family. [00:03:24] He had things that he did, chores that he did, just like the kids on their level had things they did. So it was a very unique experience. But he was there for everything. He was there for breakfast in our devotional time we had after breakfast. He was there at night when we had devotions with the kids and so forth and so on. He saw the whole thing. 

And he says, looking back on that, that he has no idea what his life would be like if he had not spent that year with us. Of course, he's married now and has children as his own ministry and all of that. 

But it was a unique experience. But, you know, it wasn't a totally new concept for me, because when I was a senior at Wheaton College, I lived with the unofficial Navigator representative who lived in Wheaton, he and his wife, Jim Merck. They had five children and they had four of us guys who actually lived in two rooms upstairs in their house. And they integrated us into their family. We helped mow grass and wash dishes and all that kind of thing. [00:04:25] 

So the concept was not totally new to me, but the experience was new to me. But we're all glad that we did. And so are the kids.

Laura Dugger: I'm so curious then, because most of us won't have that type of experience. But was there anything that he pointed out, even in later years, that you learned about your family through the eyes of an outsider, really?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, he talked about how Karolyn and I related to each other, because by this time we had our marriage together. You know, we would not have had him in our house for the first three years of our marriage or he would never have gotten married because we were having all kinds of struggles in those early years of our marriage. 

But he saw the way we treated each other with dignity and respect and he saw also how we were investing in the lives of our children. He talks about that at the time at breakfast, the time of the evening, and then going and kneeling beside their bed every night and praying for them individually. [00:05:25] So it helped me see... I already believe these things were important. But an outsider looking in on them, you know, just confirmed how important that is.

Laura Dugger: Well, and there's one other story that really stood out from your book. So will you share what made the boys from Carolina so memorable and help us understand how that lesson can translate into our own parenting today?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, there's four of those guys, John was one of them. There's four of those guys that came to the end of the school year. They all graduated from University of North Carolina and they came to live in Winston-Salem. They all got jobs for the summer and they all lived together.

They came to me, I was leading our discipleship ministry in our church and they came to me and said, "You know, we were in the Navigators Christian group on campus and we were all working for the summer, but we would like to serve the church and do something to help the church." [00:06:25] 

And I was thinking they were asking for like leadership positions to work and lead the young people or da da da da da. And I said, "Well, you know, we really pretty much have all of our personnel selected for those kind of leadership positions." And they said, "No, no, no, no, no, we're not talking about leadership. We're talking about we would like to serve the church."

I said, "Well, what do you have in mind?" They said, "Well, we know you have a dinner on every Wednesday night, and we'd like maybe to wash the dishes or clean up the tables afterwards or mop the floors or, you know, just things like that."

I said, "Oh, well, yeah, I think we have some opportunities for you to serve." I was just kind of shocked, you know? But they were demonstrating what I believe is the fundamental principle of daily living for a Christian, and that is we're here to serve other people. 

You know, Jesus said about Himself, "I did not come to be served. [00:07:26] I came to serve and then, of course, to give my life a ransom for others." So they were demonstrating what I have come to believe to be the fundamental lifestyle of every Christian, at least it should be.

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Laura Dugger: You even translated this in your book into an encouragement to parents to go and do likewise. Would you like to elaborate on that at all?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah, I really think that one of the traits of a healthy family, and one of the things that motivated me to write this book for families is I know that there's so many people that grew up in dysfunctional families, and they don't have a picture of a healthy family. 

I just believe that one of the fundamental aspects of a healthy family is that there'll be an attitude of service in that family. The husband will have an attitude of serving his wife. She'll have an attitude of serving him. They will serve the children. They will then teach the children at their appropriate age to serve each other and then to serve mom and to serve dad.

And then we take that outside the family. At appropriate ages, we take them outside the family to do service projects to other people outside. [00:10:44] It may be taking them to a food pantry, you know, to help fix up boxes to give out to those who are hungry.

One of the things I did with our kids when they were 10, 11, 12, long in there, I would get them in the car, the two of them, we have a son and daughter, put rakes in the back of our car and drive through the neighborhood in the fall. And they're looking for yards that had not been raked.

So I'd knock on the door and say, "I'm Gary Chapman. I live down the street here and I'm trying to teach my children how to serve other people. So if you don't mind, we'd like to rake your leaves." And they would say, "Say what?" And I'd repeat my little speech and they'd say, "Oh, I will pay you to rake our leaves. I've been looking for someone to rake our leaves." I said, "No, I don't want money. I'm just trying to teach our children how to serve other people." 

You know, Laura, I never had anyone who would not let us rake their leaves. The kids were learning this is what our family is all about. You know, we serve other people. They grow up like that, you're getting them ready for a life of service. [00:11:46] 

Laura Dugger: It reminds me of that famous quote to share the gospel at all times, use words only when necessary. I just think that's a way for others to even get to encounter Jesus when we hear so often be his hands and feet. And so that's a great example.

Early on in your book, you also discuss our innate longing for closeness and you teach more about healthy communication that fosters intimacy in marriage. So will you elaborate on healthy communication and even discuss all five of the steps to intimacy?

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think in a healthy family, there will be intimacy between the husband and wife. You know, the scriptures say the two become one. It's speaking of deep intimacy.

Now, a lot of people in our culture, when they hear the word intimacy, they think only of the sexual part of marriage. But it's far, far more than that. It's intellectual intimacy, sharing your thoughts, your dreams, your desires, your opinions with each other. [00:12:53] 

And some couples have lost that. They don't have intellectual intimacy because they shared an idea and the other person will say, "Well, that's not right." You know, they get into an argument because they shared an idea or shared a dream. 

So there's intellectual intimacy and we're listening to each other, treating each other's ideas with respect. And then there's emotional intimacy: meeting each other's emotional needs. That's where the 5 Love Languages can be so helpful to them. They learn that, they speak each other's language, and they feel love. They're meeting emotional needs.

And then there's social intimacy. That is, the two of them are doing things with other people in a healthy family. That can be, you know, going to church because you're interfacing with other people. They can be going to a ballgame together. But you're doing it with other people and sharing life with each other. So social intimacy. 

Then there's spiritual intimacy. We're sharing our walk with God, with each other. I don't mean preaching to each other, Laura. "Now, I read this in the Bible this morning and I think you need to hear this." [00:13:53] I don't mean that.

I mean, "Honey, I read this this morning. It was so meaningful to me. I want to share it with you. It's sharing our spiritual walk with each other. 

And then, yes, physical intimacy. But physical intimacy is impacted by all the other areas of intimacy. If we don't build intimacy in these other areas, all of which requires, you know, communication with each other, then we're not likely to have mutual sexual fulfillment. So to me, in a healthy family, that's what's going on between the husband and the wife.

Laura Dugger: That kind of goes along with something that I've always heard is that the best thing you can do for your children is give them a good marriage. I'll just quote something that you write on page 55 where you say, "I am fully convinced that my greatest contribution to the children of this generation lies in helping their mothers and fathers build intimate marriages," end quote. So, Dr. Chapman, how can a thriving and intimate marriage become our reality? [00:14:57] 

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think it's step-by-step. I talk to people about a growing marriage. I never talk about a perfect marriage. I talk about a growing marriage. Because marriages are either growing or they are regressing. They never stand still. 

So what I'm saying to couples is, Okay, here's a pattern of intimacy that I've just laid out in the book. Of course, I deal with that even more and more deeply. But let's begin to work on these things. Which one do you think needs more help right now? Intellectual intimacy or social intimacy and so forth. Let's begin to work on these things. Let's see ourselves growing.

One way to grow in intimacy is to share a book together. And by "share a book", I don't mean that one of you reads it and highlights it and says the other, "You need to read this." I don't mean that. I mean, you say, "Honey, why don't we share this book?" Any good Christian book on marriage. "Why don't we share this book?" 

So we each read the chapter. Same chapter. At the end of the week, we each say to the other, What do you think we can learn out of that chapter that might help us? [00:16:00] I can tell you by the time you get through the book, you're going to have a better marriage. I don't care what book it is. If it's a Christian book on marriage, you're going to have a better marriage. So to me, that's the way you grow to have the kind of marriage that is the model for your children.

Laura Dugger: I love that practical tip. I found chapter five to be especially helpful where you talk about raising our children with both nurture and discipline. Discipline is something that we hear a lot of people would love guidance on how to parent their children in this way. But will you elaborate on the ways that various approaches play out?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. I think we want to use words and actions. That's the way children learn: words and actions together. In our culture, we tend to lean to one extreme or the other. We either have the concept that, look, just explain to your children what you want them to do. And they're intelligent. And if you explain it clearly, then they'll be motivated to do it. [00:17:02] 

But if they don't, if the children don't do it, what do they do? Then explain it again. "Now, honey, let me tell you this one more time," and explain it again, usually a little louder than the first time. And before long, they're yelling at the kids. "Don't you get this?" 

What I'm saying is, no, no, no, use words to be sure, but put actions with the words. Here's an illustration that I've often used. The mother's fixing dinner. She goes to the door. Little Johnny's playing in the neighbor's yard and she says, "Johnny, dinner." Little Johnny just keeps on playing as though he hadn't heard anything.

And then she does that a second time. And then she goes back in a minute or two and does it a third time. The fourth time she goes, she says, "Johnny, get home." And little Johnny comes home. 

Why did Johnny come home on number four and not on number one, two, three? Because he learned that when Mama says, "Get home," if he doesn't come home, Mother will come down there in the neighborhood, take him by the hand, action, take him by the hand, and walk him home. [00:18:06] And he doesn't want Mama in the neighborhood. So he'll come home on that one. 

So I say to mothers, if you want your son or daughter to come home on the first call, all you have to do is take the action that you normally do on number four and move it up to number one and you won't walk them home at one time. And they'll come on the first call. 

So tell them you're going to change the paradigm. Don't shock them. Tell them. "I've been listening to this program, you know, this podcast. Really, really good. Here's what I learned." Oh, yeah. Words and actions.

Laura Dugger: Then on the country, if it's just actions, how does that play out?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, what they tend to do is they tell them they tell them one time and if they don't do it, then, you know, they tell them loudly and kind of whack them on the back. "I told you to do this. Now  get in there and do it." Those parents often end up physically abusing their children. I mean, hitting their children, pushing their children, physically abusing their children. And either extreme, either extreme is negative, verbal abuse or physical abuse. [00:19:08] 

What we want is the middle of the road where we're putting our words and our actions together. We're teaching the children how to respond to the things that we think need to be done.

Laura Dugger: And then if we're trying to take a more proactive approach, what are some practical ways that we can discover and speak each of our children's love languages?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, it's extremely important that we learn their love language. I've said to parents often, the question is not, do you love your children? The question is, do your children feel love? If you're not speaking their primary language, they will not feel loved, even though you're loving them in some of the other languages. 

Here are three informal ways to discover a child's love language. First of all, observe their behavior. How do they typically respond to you and to other people? For example, my son's love language is physical touch. And you can learn a child's love language by the time they're 4 years old. I mean, it's there early. [00:20:08] 

When I would come home from work, he would run to the door, grab my legs and climb on me. He's touching me because he wants to be touched. So how do they respond to you? My daughter never did that. She would say at that age, "Daddy, come into my room. I want to show you something." She wanted quality time. She wanted my undivided attention. So observe their behavior, how they respond to you and other people. 

Secondly, what do they complain about most often? The complaint reveals the love language. I had a mother say to me recently, she said, "Gary, my 6-year-old son said to me, "We don't ever go to the park anymore since the baby came." He used to have his mother's quality time, undivided attention. He and his mother at the park together. Now the baby's here, he's not getting it. And he's telling her. So listen to their complaints. What do they complain about? 

Then thirdly, what do they request of you most often? [00:21:10] If they're saying most often, "Mommy, can we play together? Can we play together? Can we play together?" they're asking you for quality time. If they're saying I need a hug, they're asking you for physical touch. 

If you put those three things together, observe their behavior, how they respond to you and others, what do they complain about, and what do they request, you can pretty well figure out a child's love language very early, certainly by four years of age.

Laura Dugger: There is an exciting project taking place behind the scenes right now, and I would love to invite you to participate. I will give you more details as I'm able. But for now, here's my request.

Will you email me your personal story of a specific way God has clearly shown up in your life? Big or small, I want to hear an account of the way He made Himself known to you and maybe received credit for an answered prayer or a way he worked out a situation in a miraculous way or how He displayed his power in your life. [00:22:12] There's no limit to the type of story to submit as long as it's true.

So please email me your story at this email address, info@thestavisauce.com. I can't wait to read your story. Thanks for sharing. And what have you observed to be the best seeds to sow in children's youth in hopes of cultivating their character and pointing them to the Lord?

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think it's exposing them starting early in their life to the things of God. That's why the devotional brief devotional time we had every morning at the breakfast table in which I just read a verse of scripture and we might make a comment or two about it and then have a prayer. And then in the evening when we would have the whole family together, all for all four of us.

One of us, Karolyn and I, would read a Bible earlier. We'd read a Bible story to them. Later we read the Bible to them. And then kneeling by their bed. [00:23:17] And either Karolyn and I would go every night to one of their bedsides and kneel by the bed and pray for them. They eventually learned to pray as well. 

It's making the Christian life, the scriptures, our relationship with God central to our family. This is what our family does. And when we expose them to that throughout those years, they're far more likely to come to receive Christ when they get to an age, they're old enough to understand, you know, what that means.

So, to me, it's those kinds of things. Then obviously treating each other with dignity and respect and giving them a positive model of how husbands and wives relate to each other. Those things are exceedingly important. There are seeds that grow up to strengthen them and lead them to Christ.

Laura Dugger: Just thinking through your study of different cultures and your many hours interacting with families, what themes have you noticed that you see are both best practices for families and also the ones that are the most destructive practices? [00:24:22] 

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think I would say the most constructive thing that we can do with our children is to not only love them and speak their primary love language on a regular basis, but also sprinkle in the other four because we want the child to learn how to receive love and give love in all five languages. 

We talk about this in our family. Mommy has a love language. Daddy has a love language. Sister has a love language. Brother has a love language. We want to speak each other's language, but there are other ways to express love too. We want to learn how to do this. 

The healthiest adult is the one who learned how to speak all five languages when they were a child. Not many people did. And they grow up and some of these languages, they don't know how to speak. And they get married and find out their spouse's language is something that they don't know how to speak.

So on the constructive side, I think that plus the spiritual dimension that we talked about is really central. 

In terms of destructive, I think the worst thing that can happen to influence children in a negative way is for mom and dad to always be arguing with each other and the kids hear them yelling and screaming at each other and telling them that's not right. [00:25:37] And sometimes even cursing each other. I mean, can you imagine that? But it happens.

I think when they see parents like that, they grow up, they have no idea what a healthy marriage looks like. That's what the young man, John, was telling me. He said, "Dr. Gary, I don't know what a healthy marriage looks like." And so they grow up without any concept of how to have a good marriage. 

So we're setting them up for failure in marriage when they just see us arguing with each other and never see us loving each other, you know, and speaking kindly to each other and touching each other and speaking the love languages to each other. So yeah, to me, that's the best and the worst thing that could be done.

Laura Dugger: Well, I love that. I find that so fascinating that you answer one of the worst things we can do for our kids is something that actually originates in our marriage. I think there's some profound wisdom in there. 

So even culturally as we see, and as a parent myself, I see the struggle of leaning toward being a kid-centered family and yet knowing that that is destructive. [00:26:44] So do you have any encouragement for families to get it back to, I mean, ideally Christ-centered, but also marriage-focused before the children type of family?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. I think to share a book on marriage and then share a book on parenting, Christian perspective in both of those kinds of books. When you read those and you're asking yourself, you know, what can we learn from this chapter, you're constantly growing, you're constantly having a better marriage and you're constantly learning how to relate to your children in a more positive manner.

Like in this book, you know, I discuss the whole thing of when you give a rule to a child, tell them what the discipline is going to be if they don't do it. Don't just give them the rule. 

Let's say the rule is going to be, We don't throw the ball inside the house. We throw the ball in the yard, but not in the house." And if you do, you'll have to put the ball in the trunk of the car for two days and you can't play with it. [00:27:45] 

Now the child understands the rule and the consequences. You're not likely to lose your temper when they throw the ball in the house because you already know and they know you just say, "Johnny, Mary, I'm so proud of you. You seldom break the rules, but you know, you broke this one. You threw the ball in the house. So you know what has to happen, right?" And they start crying and they nod their head. "Well, let's go out to the car and you go out and put the ball in the trunk of the car." And then you say, "But listen, I love you so much. I'm so proud of you because you seldom break the rules." Wow.

You know, they know the discipline, you know the discipline and you wrap the discipline in love and they learn. To me, that's the most powerful thing you can do in terms of teaching children how to follow rules. And we all need to follow rules and respect the authority of parents.

One of the major problems in our country is we have thousands of people that don't respect authority. The school teachers say to me, "Gary, I spent half my time just trying to keep order in the classroom because they don't respect the teacher." [00:28:50] So teaching them how to respect parents as the authority, the loving, who makes rules because we love them, man, that's powerful.

Laura Dugger: Well, that's such a great takeaway to get on the same page and to have a book as our outside helper. It makes me think of the proverb that says, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." 

Gary, you are one who has many resources that can help us get wisdom and understanding. So where can we go after this chat to learn more from you?

Dr. Gary Chapman: If they go to 5lovelanguages.com, the number five, 5lovelanguages.com, you can see a little blurb on all my books, and most of them you can actually order there, or you can order them from Amazon, but you get some descriptions there. You'll also find out where I do marriage conferences all over the country. I do 10 of them a year in major cities around the country. So you can see where I'm going to be. I'd love to meet some of your listeners if they're anywhere near where I'm going to be. [00:29:55] 

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will add a link to our show notes in today's episode with all of those websites. I just have one more question for you. You are already familiar that we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Dr. Chapman, what is your Savvy Sauce?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I would have to say it's learning your spouse's love language and choosing to speak it. So if you don't know your spouse's love language, let me encourage you to go online, again to 5lovelanguages.com, and take the quiz for married couples. 

You take it individually, it will tell you what your love language is: your primary, your secondary, and the one that's least important. 

Learn each other's love language. And then listen, choose to speak that language, even if you have to work hard to learn it because you didn't get it as a child. I don't know anything that, any one thing that would create a more positive climate in your marriage than learning and speaking each other's love language. [00:30:59] 

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Chapman, this is your fourth time being a guest on The Savvy Sauce. I love to keep inviting you back because you continue to share this godly wisdom that is timeless and you're so endearing with your kind tone and humble stance. So thank you for being a great role model to each of us. And thank you sincerely for being my guest today.

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, thank you, Laura. I appreciate what you're doing. So keep up the good work.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior. [00:32:08] 

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:33:09] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:34:11] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.