Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

How to Recognize the Spirit of God

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ^[a] has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

⁴ You are from God, little children, and have conquered 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^[b] they speak from the world and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

God’s Love Revealed

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God sent his one and only Son into the world in order that we may live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation^[c] for our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us and his love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we reside in him and he in us: that^[d] he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. ¹⁶ And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. ¹⁷ By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as that one is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear includes punishment, and the one who is afraid has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love, because he first loved us.

²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this is the commandment we have from him: that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been fathered by God, and everyone who loves the father^[e] also loves the child fathered by him. ² By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and keep his commandments. ³ For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴ because everyone who is fathered by God conquers the world.

God Has Given Us Eternal Life in the Son

And this is the victory which has conquered the world: our faith. ⁵ Now who is the one who conquers the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? ⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷ For there are three that testify,^{[f] 8} the Spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement^[g].

⁹ If we receive the testimony of people, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son. ¹⁰ (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.) ¹¹ And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Our Assurance of Eternal Life

¹³ These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

¹⁴ And this is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. ¹⁶ If anyone should see his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he should ask, and he will grant life to him, to those who sin not leading to death. (There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should ask about that. ¹⁷ All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.)

¹⁸ We know that everyone who is fathered by God does not sin, but the one fathered by God, he protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. ¹⁹ We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. ²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, in order that we may know the one who is true, and we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. ²¹ Little children, guard yourselves from idols.