Study Desk

The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Messiah is a child of God; and whoever loves a father loves his child also.

This is how we know that we love God's children: it is by loving God and obeying his commands.

For our love for God means that we obey his commands. And his commands are not too hard for us,

because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our faith.

Who can defeat the world? Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

So those who believe in the Son of God have this testimony in their own heart; but those who do not believe God, have made a liar of him, because they have not believed what God has said about his Son.

The testimony is this: God has given us eternal life, and this life has its source in his Son.

Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

I am writing this to you so that you may know that you have eternal life—you that believe in the Son of God.

If you see a believer commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray to God, who will give that person life. This applies to those whose sins do not lead to death. But there is sin which leads to death, and I do not say that you should pray to God about that.

We know that no children of God keep on sinning, for the Son of God keeps them safe, and the Evil One cannot harm them.

We know that we belong to God even though the whole world is under the rule of the Evil One.

We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we know the true God. We live in union with the true God—in union with his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and this is eternal life.

May God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, give us grace, mercy, and peace; may they be ours in truth and love.

Anyone who does not stay with the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God. Whoever does stay with the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

They have spoken to the church here about your love. Please help them to continue their trip in a way that will please God.

My dear friend, do not imitate what is bad, but imitate what is good. Whoever does good belongs to God; whoever does what is bad has not seen God.

From Jude, servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James— To those who have been called by God, who live in the love of God the Father and the protection of Jesus Christ:

My dear friends, I was doing my best to write to you about the salvation we share in common, when I felt the need of writing at once to encourage you to fight on for the faith which once and for all God has given to his people.