Book of Common Prayer

¹⁸ My children, we must not only talk about loving people; we must show we love people by what we do for them. We must really love them.

¹⁹ And this is how we will know that we are true. This is why we will not be afraid in front of God.

²⁰ Even if our hearts think we are wrong, God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.

²¹ My dear brothers, if our hearts do not think we are wrong, we will not be afraid in front of God.

²² If we ask God for something, we get it. We get it because we obey his laws. We get it because we do what pleases him.

²³ This is his law. We must believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. And we must love one another as he told us to do.

²⁴ If anyone obeys his laws, he belongs to God and God belongs to him. God has given us the Holy Spirit. That is how we know that God is with us.

4 My dear brothers, do not trust every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they belong to God. There are many prophets who are not true who have gone out into the world.

² Here is how you can know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that believes that Jesus Christ has come in the body of a man is from God.

³ And every spirit that does not say this about Jesus, does not belong to God. That is the spirit of the one who is against Christ. You have heard that he is coming. And now he is already in the world.

⁴ My children, you belong to God. You have won the victory over those prophets who are not true. You have won because the Spirit that is in you is stronger than the spirit that is in the world.

⁵ Those prophets belong to the world. That is why they teach about things in the world. And that is why the people of the world listen to them.

⁶ But we belong to God. Anyone who knows God listens to us. Anyone who does not belong to God does not listen to us. This is how we know if a spirit is true or not true.

11 When Jesus finished telling his twelve disciples what to do, he left that place. He went to teach and tell God's word to people in the towns around there.

² John was in prison. He heard what Christ was doing. So he sent two of his disciples to him.

³ He asked, `Are you the one who will come? Or shall we wait for another person?'

⁴ Jesus answered them, `Go and tell John what you hear and see.

⁵ Blind people see. Lame people walk. People with leprosy are healed. People who could not hear, can hear. Dead people are made alive. Poor people hear the good news.

⁶ Anyone who is not troubled in his heart about me, will be happy.'