1 John 4
1 Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test whether the spirits are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is also the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and even now it is already in the world.
4 You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world, therefore, what they speak is from the world and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; the person who knows God listens to us; the person who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God, and every person who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how the love of God is revealed in us: God sent His uniquely begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. 10 Herein is love: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. 13 This is how we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in them and they in God. 16 And we have known and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them.
17 This is how love has been perfected in us so that we have confidence on the day of judgment; that as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love because He loved us first. 20 If anyone should say, “I love God” and hates their brother or sister, they are a liar; for the person who does not love their brother or sister whom they have seen is not able to love God whom they have not seen. 21 We have this commandment from Him: that the person who loves God also loves their brother or sister.
