“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” -1 Timothy 1:5(KJV)
Charity is love. It is the love we extend to fellow man. True love cannot thrive in an impure or contaminated heart. Only a sanctified life can have a pure heart which can house the love of God. It is our love for God that gives birth to our genuine love for our fellow man. When we deeply love God we obey his instructions and follow His words, and as such, sin cannot have a place in our heart, that means that our heart is pure because it cannot warehouse any of the works of the flesh stated in Galatians 5: 19-21.It is the love for God that is the driving force for a righteous living. Our Lord Jesus in his earthly ministry said much about LOVE. He is the epitome of love. Observe what he said concerning our love for each order, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” -John 15:12-13 (NKJV). In essence what our Lord is saying is that we should love one another to the extent of laying down our lives where necessary for our brethren – “that you love one another as I have loved you”. How did he love us? 1John 3:16(NKJV) says; “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”. He laid down his lives for us. It is on this premises that Apostle Paul is defining the abode of the charity in our scripture of today as– a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned.
A good conscience is appropriately defined by Apostle Paul in Acts 24:16(KJV), “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward man”. A good conscience is the one that is free of guilt and has positive disposition. A pure heart is bound to have good conscience because it is consecrated. An unfeigned faith is in reference to pretense and falsehood. When a sister goes out to preach a brother into the church for the purpose of marrying her because he is rich, it is an impure heart, feigned faith and the conscience will not be right. A brother who has inordinate affection towards a sister and becomes a member of a local congregation, joins a service group and gets baptized without actually repenting does not have a good conscience; his heart is impure and his faith is a pretense. Most of this relationship end up as wrecks, because they are not true love. Nothing done in love that fails. .The bible affirms that love never fails-“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away” -1 Corinthians 13:8(NKJV). Love is the greatest. “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” -1 Corinthians 13:13(NKJV). Genuine love for God establishes divine presence and grants us access to God’s nature and person, while our love for man engenders answers to our prayers and grants us access to an unending blessings.
We must therefore strive to love God from the depth of our heart while loving our fellow man unreservedly.
Prayer: Father release to me the grace to love you and to love man like Christ.
Bro. Joel Ezeugo