The Testing of the Spirits

1. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
3. and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world.

4. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
5. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world’s point of view, and the world listens to them.
6. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

The Nature of God: Love

7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10. This is love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins.

Indwelling Love Shown by a Life of Love Towards God

11. Dear friends, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is made complete in us.

13. This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.
14. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.

God is Love

15. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them, and they in God.
16. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
17. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus.
18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears has not been made perfect in love.

19. We love because He first loved us.
20. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21. And He has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother and sister.