How easy is it to Love the way Jesus loves? Do we need a certain situation, security, comfort, stability, acceptance or any other particulars?
The Apostle Paul writes three letters to younger men he continued to disciple. The Timothy of two of these letters was a disciple he first met while minister at Derbe and Lystra on the second journey to the churches of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). 1 Timothy’s mother, Eunice was a Jewess, a believer in Jesus as was his grandmother Lois 2 but his father was a Greek. When Paul was ready to move onto the next cities, he asked Timothy to accompany Paul and Silas but because of the Jewish factions opposing Paul in every city, Timothy’s participation required circumcision to remove one obstacle from being heard by the Jews. So much for an easy introduction to the ministry team! How long Timothy traveled with Paul isn’t clear and what he experienced isn’t fully chronicled but we do know he was there for Paul and Silas’s imprisonment at Philippi, for the uproar at Thessalonika, that he taught with Silas at Berea after Paul left for Athens. By the time Paul writes First Timothy, this younger man is back in Ephesus pastoring disciples there. Timothy was responsible for helping the local disciples to consolidate into a functioning, cohesive group. There were those who were distracting the disciples, teaching ideas not compatible with the Truth of Jesus, the Scriptures and what had been accepted by the apostles at Jerusalem.
It is so easy to be distracted from what is essential in the LORD. While some ideas may not be satanic, anything that takes attention away from what is vital and foundational for life in the LORD is to be forsaken. ‘Stewardship’ is taking care of business, staying true to what is certain in the LORD and what is lived out in the Faith.
Here is one of those focus points that Paul is so good at giving: ‘The aim of our charge is Love’ but not just any love for this Love is agapē, Greek for a sacrificial care that lays down its life to do what is best for another. It is not the brotherly love or the erotic love but the love Jesus has when God so loves the world that He give His life… Paul also defines three characteristics of those who will express agape love:
Each one is an expression of the results of the correct relationship with the LORD as a disciple, one becoming ‘in the image’ of Jesus. Paul then gives an aside of what transpires if these are not present in the disciple.
Without the pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith, we should expect swerving, wandering away, without understanding even though all these ‘certain people’ do is done with confidence that they are so right. In their own eyes.
Every day is a good day to check our agapē love quotient to be sure we are living in these three traits that come in our closeness to the LORD.