1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.
1 John 4:2 This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit. When people say they believe that Jesus is the Christ who really came to the world and became a Man, then they have the Spirit of God in them
1 John 4:3 But people who say they don’t believe that Jesus Christ really became a Man do not have the Spirit of God in them. They have the spirit of the antichrist in them. They have told you that the antichrist will come. But I tell you: He is already here in the world.
1 John 4:4 My dear children, you belong to God, you have already defeated these false prophets. That’s because God is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
1 John 4:5 The false prophets are people of this world. That is why the false prophets speak like the people of this world and the people of this world do what the false prophets tell them.
1 John 4:6 We are the children of God and everyone who knows God listen to what we say. Everyone who is not a child of God does not listen to what we say. This is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.
1 John 4:7 You that are loved of God, we must love each other because love comes from God. Everyone who loves other people is a child of God and knows God.
1 John 4:8 People who do not love other people do not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:9 God showed us how much He loves us when God gave his only Son to come to the world. God’s Son came to give us eternal life.
1 John 4:10 True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.
1 John 4:11 You that are loved of God, God has shown us how much He loves us, so now we must also love each other.
1 John 4:12 No person has ever seen God. If we love each other, then God lives with us and we are full of his love.
1 John 4:13 We know that we live with God and that He lives with us because He has given his Spirit to us.
1 John 4:14 We have seen and now we tell other people that the Father has sent his Son so that his Son can be the Saviour of the world.
1 John 4:15 If people say they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then God is with them, and they are with God.
1 John 4:16 We have seen God’s love and we believe that God loves us. God is love and everyone who loves other people lives with God and God lives with him.
1 John 4:17 If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus
1 John 4:18 Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. (Fear has to do with punishment) God’s love is not made perfect in the one who is afraid.
1 John 4:19 We love God, because God first loved us.
1 John 4:20 If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in God’s family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him.
1 John 4:21 God has told us that if we love Him, we must also love the other believers.