LOVE, AN EXPRESSION OF A PURE HEART ~ The Master's Plan

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. ^{1 Tim 1:5-7 NIV}

Lately we have being considering the heart and its components, trying to understand what the Holy Bible has to say concerning the Heart; one of the important lesson we have learnt so far is that the Holy Bible makes use of the Heart mostly in a figurative term which by implication speaks of one’s thoughts, feelings, emotions (in general the mind). We also discovered that the heart is the centre of action in a man’s life therefore is the primary aspect of his life that God demands worship from.

It is still on this lesson that we discovered that the Heart is sick and badly corrupt but can be remedied by the Presence of the mind of Christ, which can be made possible through complete obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit who will only come into a Heart that has acknowledged Jesus Christ as His Lord and Saviour.

Today, we want to consider more deeply the Characteristics of a Heart that is pure; to do this, we will review the expressions of a pure Heart.

Paul’s first letter to Timothy 1:5 – 7 says, ‘the goal of this command is love’; in our last lesson, we considered THE HEART AS THE CENTRE OF TRUE WORSHIP. We talked so much about the worship that comes from the heart but we failed to point out a very valid truth about worship which is;

1. Worship is an expression of Love.

2. Worship is an expression of one’s theology.

This is to say that your reverence for God will be based on what you know about God thus good theology produces good worship while bad theology produces a sick worship. Rev. Gary Bredain said that ‘what a man really knows about God determines the life he will live’; in other words, worship is our response of obedience to the love that God has first shown to us, meaning that when we don’t know this God who has shown us love, when we do not know His precepts, His ways, we cannot actually obey them in worship.

The reason why the government of the world approved Gay Marriage and other inhuman activities is because they do not know God nor His acts of Love neither do they know His precepts or His ways. They obey the person they know which is the devil and thus their worship is to the devil. John 8:42, 44

Paul was instructing Timothy from the chapter one verse one of his first letter to him to make sure that he maintain on teaching the core message of the scripture; not deviating from the truth.

Paul concludes his advice to Timothy by saying that this I have said to you is a command; by implication, it is something you must do. He added by saying that it is also a command that has a goal, an aim which is to love God; furthermore this love is not a love that is verbally uttered alone, neither is it a love without effect but a love that will and must flow from a Pure Heart.

Paul's Usage of the word ‘Pure’ means, clean heart, a heart without deceit, a heart without defects, and a heart that has not been compelled to love God by circumstances.

So many people render worship to God because of so many reasons such as,

· Worshiping God because of what they will gain from Him

· Worshiping God because it is a must for every member of their family to do so.

· Worshiping God because I was born in a Christian home.

· Worshiping God because if I don’t I will go to Hell

· Worshiping God because I want to go to heaven

These and so many other reasons are often in our minds when we render worship to God, but here Paul says, you have to let this people know fully, what God has done for then; you have to let them appreciate his work of grace on the cross so that when they will worship God, they will do so from their Heart, they will do so with Love.

Questions for you today, for what reason do you worship God? Do you worship Him because you have known about how much He first loved you and you want to reciprocate that love or is there something else in your heart that is your reason for reverencing God.

Loving God means obeying His command; it should be noted as well that in His command, He desires that you love your neighbour; your love for God will be incomplete if there is no love for your neighbour.

In our next discussion, we will continue on this topic but will digress to discovering what love is, until then may our Heart (emotions, feelings, thoughts and will) love God for who He is and for what he has done.