1 Tim. 1:5 “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned…”

Paul provides us in this passage God’s divine strategy on how to win friends and influence people: charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. These instructions were not for Timothy alone but for all of us. Paul’s words to Timothy are also God’s words to us in which we discover these beautiful virtues of a life of grace for a people of God – charity flowing out of a pure heart, underscored by a good conscience, in a life defined by an immovable, unhidden, and sincerest of all faiths in the glorious doctrines of grace that was committed to Paul.

This is a verse to mediate upon. Just think about how all three of these wonderful virtues are intricately connected like colors of paint blending together.

You cannot have one attribute without the other. We cannot truly love without a pure heart, which cannot be pure unless we live by a good conscience, which we cannot possess unless we walk with a sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is neither love without a good conscience, nor a good conscience without faith, nor faith without the Word of God. Pure faith in what Christ teaches us in His Word enables us to live with a pure conscience, which inspires us to love everyone we know with a pure heart.

A sincere walk operating alone upon faith in Christ clears the conscience from guilt and produces a mighty love out of a pure heart. One cannot love with purity if the heart is conflicted by guilt as a result of walking with only a modicum of faith.

How we do achieve all of this? We must study His Word. Instead of being malnourished spiritually by fables and genealogies and living under the law (1 Tim. 1:4), we stand fast in our liberty whereby Christ has made us free (Gal. 5:1), and we allow the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16) with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:5) and we reckon as true everything that God has made us in His Son (Rom. 6). Then we become a living “thank you” to God (Rom.12:1). We live with gratitude to God and love to man, proceeding out of a pure heart, directed by a good conscience, and nourished up by an unfeigned faith in Paul’s sound doctrines of grace.

God’s design in this age of grace is that we may have an unfeigned faith in Him as we walk in this evil world, which produces a good conscience with the knowledge of having all our trespasses forgiven (Col. 2:13), which leads us on to a purity of heart and of love to God and man. True Biblical charity that God would have us embody is made possible by the pureness of our hearts, the clearness of our conscience, and the sincerity of our faith in God and His Word.

These are more than just principles to live by. These are reflections of the nature and character of God Himself.

Just think about that.