Faith without religion.
Many believers have a hard time with the “contents of their hearts.” Most of them are able to “do right” when the choice is there to do but when it comes to feeling what they are acting from the heart, they consider themselves failures.
We read in 1st Timothy 1:5:
1st Timothy 1:5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.
The fact of the matter is the translation is dead on – the English here means exactly what the Greek says.
We note that the END of the directions in this passage is listed first! This suggests that what is listed first is the goal or the end of all things that Christians are engaged in as followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not being automatically sons and daughters of God, we strive through life to reach this summit of the faith – to be able to possess . . .
“ . . . Charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
In other words, at regeneration or rebirth, Christians are not automatically capable of operating in this manner, but the fact remains that this is the end goal Paul had in mind. Since this is so, the question remains: How does a Christian get to the point where they actually reach the end and have charity of a pure heart, out of a good conscience with faith unfeigned. How can the individual who naturally hates from then heart, and has a conscience that is off, and whose faith is feigned . . . even get started?
We might suggest that the answers, the solution, is discovered in this passage . . . but in the reverse order of how it is presented.
In other words the passage can be broken down in the following manner:
It begins with the Goal . . .
The Middle Portion is . . .
The Last thing said is . . .
The end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart . . .
And of a good conscience
And of faith unfeigned.
The point furthest away from The “end of the Commandment” is
Then next in line is . . .
And the closest thing to the goal is
Faith unfeigned
And a good conscience
Charity out of a pure heart
We might suggest that FEIGNED FAITH is the first thing to address in the Christian life because it is furthest away from the Goal of achieving “the end of the Commandment.”
Then the next thing to overcome is the bad conscience . .
And the last frontier to overcome and reach is Charity out of an impure heart.
Using the reversal approach we might say that an approach to Christian growth is to . . .
First, check to make sure your FAITH IS UNFEIGNED.
This will lend to you having a GOOD CONSCIENCE (if it doesn’t, then your faith is perhaps somehow feigned) which will then allow you to possess . . .
CHARITY OUT OF AN IMPURE HEART, which is . . . the end of the commandment!
From all of this we might begin by realizing that our failure to express “charity out of a pure heart” begins with possessing because we might possess some amount or another of feigned faith. This is the starting point because without faith there cannot be genuine agape love. Why? Faith in God – his promises, and demands, and ways – is what allows us to love as He loves. Failure in faith leads to a failure to love – every time.
An example:
God says, “Forgive those who harm you.” We either truly trust Him and place faith in His command OR our faith is feigned – and we resist this. When our faith is feigning in one of his commands, our ability to show agape love (in forgiving those who have hurt is) is corrupted.
So, we must realize that FEIGNED FAITH will not lead to agape love.
What will it lead to? An unstable conscience! Meaning we know in our hearts that we are not truly placing unfeigned faith in God’s command, our conscience is corrupted as we also then fail to love with an impure heart!
This leads us to say –
“Unfeigned faith leads to a good conscience which leads to love out of a pure heart” – all of which are the final product of his commands. Conversely, “Bad faith leads to a bad conscience which leads to phony charity.”
So how do we correct bad faith? We increase the good faith by reading the Word and hearing it taught. In so doing, we are presented with the Words and promises of God and are confronted with the choice to believe them – or not. And this brings us full circle –
“Good faith, lends to a good conscience, which allows for love out of a pure heart!”