I Timothy 1:5 – Mark of the Believer

Daily Devotional Bible Verse

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5 ESV)

Love is so vast and deep that humans will never reach its end in understanding or experience. Here, love is the believer’s “charge”; in Romans it is the “fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10); and in I John it is an accurate depiction of our God, “God is love” (I John 4:8). So love is both something to be felt and enjoyed together, and an attribute of our God to be learned and emulated over a lifetime. Essentially, what it boils down to is that genuine biblical love is a life’s work in itself!

Love is both an experience and a pursuit. The commentator John MacArthur describes love as, “characterized by self-denial and self-sacrifice, for the benefit of others, and it is the mark of a true Christian.” For God loved us first, even as ill-deserving rebels, by sacrificially sending his only Son for our great good and his great glory! This indeed is how we ought to love one another, at a cost to ourselves on others’ behalf. Love is expensive, costly, and not a thing to be taken lightly.

Meditate on the passages used in today’s devotion. How do they change your understanding and perception of love?