Day 28: 1 Timothy 1:5

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”



As a leader, you will probably do a lot of teaching, mentoring, and give a lot of advice. If you’re a particularly effective leader, you’ll do this a lot. Many times, a leader will approach the advice they give, the teaching they do, and the mentoring they do without any kind of a plan or reason. Pressed for time or backed into a corner by a desperate co-worker, they shoot from the hip and may end up doing more damage than had been inflicted before.


Why is this? Because when you don’t have a plan or even a goal your advice or teaching is usually what the other person wants to hear. Because of our selfishness, because of our time constraints, and because of our lack of forethought, we will automatically tune our responses to what the other person wants to hear, both to please them and to get them out of our way.


Paul takes a different tack, and he’s teaching Timothy this method. That makes it important to us. Paul was Timothy’s mentor. In fact, Paul was a father figure to Timothy. He taught Timothy about the Bible and how to be a biblical leader. That means that if Paul was teaching this to Timothy, it has particular importance for leaders today.


Paul says that everything that we do should be for the sake of love. Here again is that unconditional love that Jesus modeled for us in His life and death, and that we are supposed to show to others. He goes further and shows the motivation that this love comes from:


1. A pure heart


2. A good conscience


3. A sincere faith


You’ll note that these are all things that God gives us at our conversion. You might also note that love comes from each of these things.


Paul is telling us that everything that we do must be in love. That means that we give up our selfish motivations and really teach, act, give advice, and mentor with an eye of truly helping the other person. We can accomplish these things because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. It still takes some forethought, though. It takes being prepared to answer questions and really helping people. It means setting aside some of your day to deal with pop up issues so you don’t blow them off to save the time.






CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Everything we do must come from love. All advice, teaching, and leading we do must be for the good of the other person, rather than our edification.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Hebrews 12:1-3


Prayer: Father, help me to speak in love, and to truly help those in need, in whatever circumstance they or I are in. Help me to love people so much that everything I do is for their benefit, rather than mine. Thank you, Father, In Christ’s Name I pray, amen.