Study Desk

If we say we live in God, we must live the way 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 word of God lives in you, and you have defeated the Evil One.

The world is passing away, and all the things that people want in the world are passing away. But whoever does what God wants will live forever.

The Father has loved us so much! This shows how much he loved us: We are called children of God. And we really are his children. But the people in the world don't understand that we are God's children, because they have not known him.

Dear friends, now we are children of God. 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. We will see him just as he is.

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

Those who are God's children do not continue to sin, because the new life God gave them stays in them. They cannot keep sinning, because they have become children of God.

That's how we know we belong to the way of truth. And when our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God, because God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything.

My dear friends, if we don't feel that we are doing wrong, we can be without fear when we come to God.

And God gives us what we ask for. We receive it 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 as he commanded.

All who obey God's commands live in God. And God lives in them. How do we know that God lives in us? We know because of the Spirit he gave us.

My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God.

This is how you can recognize God's Spirit. One spirit says, "I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man." That Spirit is from God.

Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. You have heard that the enemy of Christ is coming, and now he is already in the world.

My dear children, you belong to God, so you have already defeated these false prophets. That's because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

But we are from God. So the people who know God listen to us. But the people who are not from God don't listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.

Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God's child. And so everyone who loves knows God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him.