Study Desk

We announce to you what we have seen and heard, because we want you also to have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Here is the message we have heard from Christ and now announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

So if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars and do not follow the truth.

But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin.

But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done.

If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and we do not accept God's teaching.

We can be sure that we know God if we obey his commands.

Anyone who says, "I know God," but does not obey God's commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.

But if someone obeys God's teaching, then in that person God's love has truly reached its goal. This is how we can be sure we are living in God:

Whoever says that he lives in God must live as Jesus lived.

I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know the One who existed from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you are strong; the teaching of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.

The world and everything that people want in it are passing away, but the person who does what God wants lives forever.

The Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God. And we really are his children. The reason the people in the world do not know us is that they have not known him.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and we have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him, because we will see him as he really is.

The devil has been sinning since the beginning, so anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this purpose: to destroy the devil's work.

Those who are God's children do not continue sinning, because the new life from God remains in them. They are not able to go on sinning, because they have become children of God.

This is the way we know that we belong to the way of truth. When our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God. God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

And God gives us what we ask for because we obey God's commands and do what pleases him.

This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love each other, just as he commanded.

The people who obey God's commands live in God, and God lives in them. We know that God lives in us because of the Spirit God gave us.