Redemptive Realignment
1 Tim. 1:5 - “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
Have you ever been in a car with poorly aligned tires? There is the shudder of the wheels fighting against themselves, the pull of the wheel to one side or the other. It creates additional friction on the tires, which prematurely wears them out. Fuel economy is decreased as the engine has to work harder to make the wheels spin. All of this can be fixed by having a trained individual align the tires to work together as they pull in the same direction.
There are many areas of life when it’s necessary to get realigned. One such area for Paul was when some saints started veering away from the simple gospel of Jesus. He charged Timothy to correct certain people in the Ephesian church who were deviating from the simplicity of the gospel of Christ (1 Tim. 1:3, 18). Contrary to what some might think, Paul’s goal in correction was not simply to identify and chasten for the sake of chastening. The aim of correction was to reignite their love by realigning their motives!
REIGNITING THEIR LOVE - “The aim of our charge is love…”
Jesus taught his followers that the summary of the entire law was to first love God and then love others (Matt. 22:36-40). What this passage in 1 Tim. 1:5 is teaching is that when our doctrine begins to deviate from the simplicity of the gospel, our love for God and others has begun to grow cold and some other passions are blazing in our lives. That passion could be for many different things, but what needs to occur is for our true love to be reignited (consider what Jesus said to the church of Ephesus in Rev. 2:4). The aim of Paul’s charge to correct is to reignite their love for God and others.
What Paul understands is that their Biblical, sacrificial love will overflow from three different things taking place inside of them.
REALIGNING THEIR FOCUS - “love…that comes from a pure heart”
Disciples of Jesus who hear this phrase should immediately remember the Sermon on the Mount and the opening beatitudes where Jesus stated, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). In this phrase, the blessing of seeing God was reserved for those with the most focused, undistracted, undivided heart. As Paul Earnhart said, “The true vision of God will not be granted to the shrewd and calculating who play dishonest games, or to the double-minded who can never quite put both feet in the kingdom, but to those who are absolutely honest and single of heart toward God.”
It is this kind of focus that David prayed for in Ps. 86:11, ”Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart [give me an undivided heart] to fear your name.”
When someone’s love for God and others has been distracted by a competing affection for someone or something else, it is time for their primary focus to be realigned. Realigning their spiritual focus will lead to loving God and others like they should.
REALIGNING THEIR MORALS - “love…that comes from a good conscience”
As R. Kent Hughes described, “the essential meaning of conscience is one’s inner awareness of the quality of one’s own actions” (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus: To Guard the Deposit). That inner awareness should be shaped and influence by God and what he has revealed about life. Our consciences should learn to approve what God approves, and should feel guilt and shame when we choose to stray from God’s glorious standards. A properly trained conscience will motivate us to stay the course of loving God and others well! When we begin to habitually justify loving God and others less, or even differently than we should, then Paul is telling us that our consciences should be evaluated and realigned.
REALIGNING THEIR SINCERITY - “love…that comes from a sincere faith”
As an author has written, “The way some people live has no relationship with the faith they profess with their lips.” We have all witnessed hypocrisy. If we’re honest, we have all engaged in it at some time or another. We profess to love and care for someone, but as soon as they are out of the room we mock or belittle them. We make great boasts about how much Jesus mean to us, but when that persistent temptation shows up, we choose the temptation over Jesus.
“We need to realign our faith to be more than professed words that are theologically accurate, but a life that consistently reflects the living words of God as they convict and strengthen our hearts”
Paul is saying that when Biblical love for God and others is absent, one of the broken heart issues is an insincere faith. The solution is to develop sincerity. Spiritual honest & itegrity. We need to realign our faith to be more than professed words that are theologically accurate, but a life that consistently reflects the living words of God as they convict and strengthen our hearts. As one commentator has pointed out, “such faith joins naturally with love. In fact, the Pastorals link faith and love eight times (1 Timothy 1:14; 2:15; 4:12; 6:11; 2 Timothy 1:13; 2:22; 3:10; Titus 2:2) (Hughes).
APPLICATION
Prayerfully, this perspective on correction provides all of us with greater appreciation for the entire process. The goal is redemptive: to reignite zealous love for God and others in someone whose love of self is stifling all other affection. The method for reigniting Biblical love is to realign their primary focus, God-trained morals and sincerity of faith. Likewise, when we begin to feel the smothering effects of selfishness in our own chests, let’s respond well to our spiritual siblings when they strive to help us realign our hearts.
Your brother and fellow sojourner,
