1 John 4:1-9

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but put the spirits to the test to see whether they are from God; for many false teachers have gone out into the world.

2 The test by which you may recognize the Spirit of God is that every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come as man is from God,

3 and that no spirit is from God which does not acknowledge this about Jesus. Such is the spirit of the anti-Christ; of whose coming you have heard, and it is already in the world.

4 As for you, dear children, you are God's children, and have successfully resisted them; for greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

5 They are the world's children, and so their language is that of the world, and the world listens to them. We are God's children.

6 The man who is beginning to know God listens to us, but he who is not a child of God does not listen to us. By this test we can distinguish the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error.

7 Dear friends, let us love one another; for love has its origin in God, and every one who loves has become a child of God and is beginning to know God.

8 He who is destitute of love has never had any knowledge of God; because God is love.

9 God's love for us has been manifested in that He has sent His only Son into the world so that we may have Life through Him.