How to Recognize the Spirit of God
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits [to determine] if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the [spirit] of the antichrist, [of] which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
4
You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, because the one [who is] in you is greater than the one [who is] in the world.
5
They are from the world; {therefore} they speak from the world and the world listens to them.
6
We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
God’s Love Revealed
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God.
8
The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9
By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God sent his one and only Son into the world in order that we may live through him.