Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

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.

⁷ My dear brothers, we must love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves others is God's child and he knows God.

⁸ But anyone who does not love others does not know God, because God is love.

⁹ This is how God showed his love for us. He sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

¹⁰ This is love! We did not love God, but he loved us. And he sent his Son to be the sacrifice to pay for the wrong things we have done.

¹¹ My dear brothers, if God loved us so much, we must love one another also.

¹² No man has ever seen God. But God lives in us if we love one another. And in loving one another, his love is made perfect.

¹³ He has given us of his own Spirit. That is how we know that we are in him and he is in us.

¹⁴ And we have seen and we are telling you that the Father sent his Son to save the people in the world.

¹⁵ If anyone says, `Jesus is the Son of God,' God is in him and he is in God.

¹⁶ We know and we believe that God loves us. God is love. And anyone who loves others is in God and God is in him.

¹⁷ That is why we love each other very much. Then we will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. We are like Christ in this world.

¹⁸ Where God's love is, there is no fear. God's perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. Anyone who has fear does not have perfect love.

¹⁹ We love others because God first loved us.

²⁰ If anyone says, `I love God', and he hates his brother, he is telling a lie. If he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

²¹ God gave us this law. The person who loves God must love his brother also.

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is God's child. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child.

² This is how we know we love God's children. We love God and we obey his laws.

³ We show that we love God when we obey his laws. His laws are not hard to obey.

⁴ Everyone who is God's child wins a victory over the world. We win because we believe God.

⁵ Who wins a victory over the world? It is only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

⁶ There was water and there was blood when Jesus Christ came. There was not water only, but there was water and there was blood. The Spirit proves this is true, because the Spirit is true.

⁷ There are three in heaven who prove it is true. They are the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. These three are one.

⁸ There are three on earth who prove it is true. They are the spirit, the water, and the blood. These three all prove the same thing.

⁹ We believe what people prove to us. But when God proves something it is stronger than what people prove. This is what God proved about his Son.

¹⁰ Anyone who believes in God's Son believes what God says about him. Anyone who does not believe God shows that he thinks what God says is not true. He has not believed what God says about his Son.

¹¹ Here is what God says. He has given us life that will last for ever. And this life is in his Son.

¹² So anyone who has the Son has this life. Anyone who does not have the Son of God does not have this life.

¹³ I have written these things to you who believe on the name of the Son of God. I have written them so that you will know that you will live for ever.

¹⁴ And we are sure God will do this. If we ask him for anything that he wants us to have, he will listen to us.

¹⁵ And if we know he listens to us when we ask for anything, then we know that we have what we asked him for.

¹⁶ Maybe a man sees his brother do something wrong, but not so bad that he must die for it. The man should ask God and God will let his brother live. God will let people live if the things they have done are not so bad that they must die for them. But there are things so wrong that a person must die for them. If he has done such as that, I do not tell the man to ask God to let him live.

¹⁷ Everything that is wrong is a bad thing. But not every bad thing is so wrong that a person must die for it.

¹⁸ We know that any child of God does not do wrong things. The Son of God keeps him safe and the devil cannot touch him.

¹⁹ We know that we belong to God and the whole world belongs to the devil.

²⁰ We know that the Son of God has come. He has given us a heart to know him who is true. We belong to him who is true, because we belong to his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God. He has the life that will live for ever.

²¹ My children, have nothing to do with false gods or idols.