1 John Chapter 4

Testing the spirits

¹ Friends, don’t believe every prophet that claims to speak by the spirit. Test whether his spirit is from God; a lot of false prophets have gone out. ² You can recognize that a spirit is from God by whether it agrees that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. ³ Any spirit that doesn’t, isn’t from God; it’s the antichristian spirit that you’ve heard is coming and is already here. ⁴ You belong to God. You’ve triumphed over the world, because the One that’s in you is greater than the one that’s in it. ⁵ False leaders belong to the world, so they speak of it, and it listens to them. ⁶ We belong to God; people that know him listen to us. People that don’t belong to him, don’t listen to us. That’s how you can tell if a prophet has the true spirit or a deceiving one.    1 Jn 4:1-6                                                                                                      

God is Love

⁷ Let’s love each other because love comes from God, and everybody that loves has been begotten by him and knows him. ⁸ People that don’t love don’t know God because he is characterized by love. ⁹ God showed that love by sending his only Son into the world so we could have life through him. ¹⁰ Love is not so much that we love God as that he’s loved us and sent his Son as a basis for forgiving our sins. ¹¹ If God loved us that much, we should love each other. ¹² Nobody has ever seen God; but if we love each other, he’s in us and his love has accomplished its purpose in us.                                                                                                                                              

1 Jn 4:7-12

¹³ We know he’s in us and we’re in him by the spirit he’s given us. ¹⁴ We’ve seen and speak to the fact that the Father has sent the Son to save the world. ¹⁵ If anybody agrees that Jesus is God’s Son, God’s in him and he’s in God. ¹⁶ We’ve known and believed that God has put his love in us. God is characterized by love and whoever keeps loving keeps being in God and God keeps being in him. ¹⁷ Love ends up giving us confidence at judgment time because we’re like he was in the world. ¹⁸ There’s no fear in love; perfect love eliminates fear because fear corresponds with punishment; whoever is afraid has not become perfect at loving. ¹⁹ Let’s love because he loved us first. ²⁰ If people say they love God and hate fellow Christians, they’re not telling the truth. If they don’t love Christians they’ve seen, they can’t be loving God they’ve not seen. ²¹ We have this commandment from him: whoever loves God must love God’s children too.                    

1 Jn 4:13-21