1 John 4
1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2This is how you know the spirit is from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; indeed, this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and even now it is already in the world.
4You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
5They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world hears them.
6We are from God. Whoever knows God hears us, and whoever is not from God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9This is how the love of God was revealed among us: God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we could live through him.
10This is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also are obligated to love one another.
12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us and his love has reached its goal in us.
13This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: because he has given to us a portion of his spirit.
14And we have seen and now testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.
16And we have known and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17This is how love has reached its goal with respect to us, so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment: because as he is, so also are we, although still in this world.
18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. So the one who fears has not reached the goal of love.
19We love because he first loved us.
20If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21And we have this commandment from him, whoever loves God must love his brother and sister also.