Becoming a lover

What is the hardest thing God asks us to do and the surest sign that we have been born again by his Spirit?  I do not think there is any question that the hardest command God has given is to love him with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40) and obedience to these commands is the surest sign we have been given divine life (1 John 4:7-21).  This is especially obvious when we recognize that love is not simply doing good for God and others but love is a true affection in the heart for God, for others which results in doing good (1 Corinthians 13:1-4).  Love delights in the beloved and delights in doing good for and for the sake of the one loved.

So how do we become loving people?  How does a church "make loving people?  Paul tells us how this happens in 1 Timothy 1:5 (ESV), "The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith."  First notice the logic of Paul in this verse.  Paul and Timothy as leaders of the church have a charge and the goal of that charge is to create people who love God and man.  However the fulfilling of that charge does not directly cause love but rather creates people who have pure hearts, good consciences and a sincere faith which then produces love for God and men.  The big question here is to what does "our charge" refer?

Two verses earlier Paul used the verbal form of this noun when he tells Timothy, "...charge certain persons to not teach any different doctrine..."  Later in 4:11 Paul uses this word to tell Timothy to teach the word of God to God's people.  Then in 1:18 Paul uses the noun to tell him that he has entrusted "this charge" to Timothy because of God's call on his life to be a pastor/elder in the church.  Thus the charge which has as its goal the creation of loving people is the teaching of the word of God in the church and the corresponding work of preventing false teaching to get a foothold in the church.  Paul expects that as pastors/elders, parents and other teachers in the church clearly communicate the true gospel, the true word of God and prevent false teaching from prevailing in the church that people will have "pure hearts, good consciences and sincere faith" which will in turn lead to these people loving God and other humans.

To have a pure heart is to have a heart that wants one thing; it is to be person who believes that Christ has done everything to make me right with God and thus he alone is worthy of all my trust and loyalty.  It is to be able to say with the apostle Paul, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death..." (Philippians 3:8 & 10).

To have a good conscience is to be free from the guilt of sin which plagued me because I know that all my sins are forgiven because of Christ.  It is to be free from the demand that I prove myself worthy of God's love by my performance.  It is to have a conscience that no longer accuses me of my failures because it is at rest in Christ's finished work.

A sincere faith is trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for being made right with God not so that he will give me a happy life on planet earth.  It is to trust in Jesus to do what he came to do, bring me to God, not to trust him to bring me into a life of health and prosperity.  I am trusting Jesus to do for me what he wants to do for me not what I want him to do for me.  I am not using him to get what I want but trusting him to give me what I need, a relationship to God.

I think we can begin to see how it is that if by the gospel I am made into a person who has this sort of interior life than I become a person who truly does love God for his sake and not for what he can do for me and I am free to love others without concern for myself or my own needs but out of joy in doing good for those I love.  I do not need other people to treat me well in order for me to treat them well because I have been given so much which I did not deserve through Christ.  I am safe and secure and thus free to take risks in loving God and others.