Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
Warning Against False Teachers
4 My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they are from God. 2 This is how you can know God’s Spirit: One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. 3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God but is the spirit of the Enemy of Christ. You have heard that the Enemy of Christ is coming. And now he is already in the world.
4 My dear children, you belong to God. So you have defeated them because God’s Spirit, who is in you, is greater than the devil, who is in the world. 5 And they belong to the world. What they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 But we are from God, and those who know God listen to us. But those who are not from God do not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.
Love Comes from God
7 Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. The person who loves has become God’s child and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. 10 True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. God sent his Son to die in our place to take away our sins.
11 That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal. It is made perfect in us.
13 We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because God gave us his Spirit. 14 We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. That is what we teach. 15 If someone says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” then God lives in him. And he lives in God. 16 And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. 17 If God’s love is made perfect in us, then we can be without fear on the day God judges us. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like him. 18 Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. So love is not made perfect in the person who has fear.
19 We love because God first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. He can see his brother, but he hates him. So he cannot love God, whom he has never seen. 21 And God gave us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Faith in the Son of God
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is God’s child. The person who loves the Father also loves the Father’s children. 2 How do we know that we love God’s children? We know because we love God and we obey his commands. 3 Loving God means obeying his commands. And God’s commands are not too hard for us. 4 Everyone who is a child of God has the power to win against the world. It is our faith that wins the victory against the world. 5 So the one who conquers the world is the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 Jesus Christ is the One who came with water[a] and with blood.[b] He did not come by water only. He came by both water and blood. And the Spirit says that this is true. The Spirit is the truth. 7 So there are three witnesses:[c] 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These three witnesses agree. 9 We believe people when they say something is true. But what God says is more important. And he has told us the truth about his own Son. 10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has the truth that God told us. Anyone who does not believe makes God a liar. He does not believe what God told us about his Son. 11 This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life. But the person who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
We Have Eternal Life Now
13 I write this letter to you who believe in the Son of God. I write so that you will know that you have eternal life now. 14 We can come to God with no doubts. This means that when we ask God for things (and those things agree with what God wants for us), then God cares about what we say. 15 God listens to us every time we ask him. So we know that he gives us the things that we ask from him.
16 Suppose someone sees his brother in Christ sinning (sin that does not lead to eternal death). That person should pray for his brother who is sinning. Then God will give the brother life. I am talking about people whose sin does not lead to eternal death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not mean that a person should pray about that sin. 17 Doing wrong is always sin. But there is sin that does not lead to eternal death.
18 We know that anyone who is God’s child does not continue to sin. The Son of God keeps him safe, and the Evil One cannot hurt him. 19 We know that we belong to God. But the Evil One controls the whole world. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding. Now we can know God, the One who is true. And our lives are in that true God and in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God, and he is eternal life. 21 So, dear children, keep yourselves away from false gods.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.