Testing the spirits
4
📚✭Dearly loved ones, do not believe every spirit✭, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets✭ have gone out into the world. 2 📚✭By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh✭ is of God, 3 📚and every spirit that does not confess✭ that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. This is that spirit of antichrist, about which you have heard that it would come. And even now it is already in the world✭.4 📚You are of God, little children, and have overcome them✭, because greater is he who is in you✭ than he who is in the world✭. 5 📚They are of the world, so they✭ speak of the world✭, and the world listens to them. 6 📚✭We✭ are of God. He who knows God listens to us, but he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
Love described
7 📚✭Dearly loved ones, let us love✭ one another; for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God.
A person without love does not know God
8 📚He who does not love does not know God✭, for God is love✭.
How God showed His love
9 📚✭In this the love of God was revealed toward us: God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 📚Love is seen in this: Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation✭ for our sins.
We should love as God loved
11 📚✭Dearly loved ones, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 📚No man has seen God✭ at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us✭, and his love is made perfect✭ in us.
God’s Spirit gives us God’s love
13 📚By this we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 📚✭And we have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world✭. 15 📚Whoever confesses✭ that Jesus is the Son of God✭, God dwells in him, and he in God.
16 📚✭And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
Love gives confidence, removes fear
17 📚Our love is made perfect✭ in this: That we can have boldness✭ in the day of judgment✭, because in this world we are just as he is✭. 18 📚✭There is no fear in love, but perfect love✭ casts out fear✭, because fear is linked with torment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 📚✭We love him, because he first loved us.
Loving others is the proof we love God