Love from a pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith

I Timothy 1:5 (NASB)

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.   

All teachers of the Bible need to memorize this verse.  The goal of instruction is love.  Love for those you are instructing.  And what is the motivation of your love, what is the basis for your love, what is the requirement for your ability to instruct out of love?  Three characteristics should describe the loving teacher of the Word of God---having a pure heart, having a good conscience, and having a sincere faith.  These characteristics also define of loving parent, an excellent leader, and a genuine Christian person.  

Pure heart

Purity is the opposite of contamination.  Working in the pharmaceutical industry, I know that it is the ultimate goal of every pharmaceutical manufacturer to produce drug products that are free from chemical and microbiological contamination.  We spend huge amounts of time, energy and money to strive to attain this goal of 100% purity, yet we know that 100% purity is practically impossible.  The same is true in the spiritual sense.  You can spend a lifetime trying to achieve purity on your own, but you will never succeed.  First you must give your heart to Jesus and enable His spirit to control your life and then you can work with Him to attain a pure heart.  Jesus said that the pure in heart shall see God (Matt 5:8).  Psalm 24:3 says that a pure heart will stand in the Holy Place of God.  That tells us how important having a pure heart really is.  Jesus later stated in Matt 6:19-21 that your heart is where your priorities of life lie.  The person whose priorities are eternal has a pure heart.  Eternal priorities focus on serving God and others first without any selfish desires (the source of contamination) for yourself.  This must be one of the goals and characteristics of a Bible teacher.       

Good conscience

Your conscience is that faculty, that ability within yourself to distinguish your actions (and thoughts) as right or wrong.  Spiritually, your conscience either accuses or excuses you of sin.  You can have a good or clear conscience (Acts 24:16, II Tim 1:3, Heb 13:18) or you can have a guilty (Heb 10:22), defiled (Titus 1:15), weak (I Cor 8:7) or seared (I Tim 4:2) conscience.  Would anyone dispute the affirmation that having a good conscience is the greatest blessing in life you can hope for?  A good conscience is the same as peace of mind and heart.  A good conscience gives you the kind of peace described in Phil 4:7.  Anyone reading this who knows that your conscience is not good or clear can change that through the cleansing of the blood of Christ (Heb 9:14).  A great teacher of the Word of God is someone who has a good and clear conscience.           

Sincere faith

Your faith must be sincere, that is free of any kind of deceit, any kind of hypocrisy, any kind of adulteration.  Sincere faith is consistent, not moody, not selfish, not pretentious.  It’s amazing how easily it is to tell is someone’s faith is sincere.  There’s something supernatural about our senses that can tell is someone is truly or falsely sincere.  Since your faith is proved by your actions (James 2:14, 26) a sincere faith will be seen not just heard.  So you cannot hide your faith, especially if it is an insincere faith.  A great teacher must have sincere faith in what he/she is teaching to others.         

A sincere faith results from a pure heart that allows a good conscience and all three produce the kind of love in you that loves God with all of your mind, heart, soul and strength and loves your neighbor as yourself.  May you strive to be characterized by these qualities and measures of a true Christian saint.