Study Desk

I write you, then, not because you do not know the truth; instead, it is because you do know it, and you also know that no lie ever comes from the truth.

My dear friends, we are now God's children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.

Whoever sins is guilty of breaking God's law, because sin is a breaking of the law.

Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil had done.

Those who are children of God do not continue to sin, for God's very nature is in them; and because God is their Father, they cannot continue to sin.

We must not be like Cain; he belonged to the Evil One and murdered his own brother Abel. Why did Cain murder him? Because the things he himself did were wrong, and the things his brother did were right.

We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.

We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

Those who obey God's commands live in union with God and God lives in union with them. And because of the Spirit that God has given us we know that God lives in union with us.

But you belong to God, my children, and have defeated the false prophets, because the Spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world.

Those false prophets speak about matters of the world, and the world listens to them because they belong to the world.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God.

We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit.

Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on the Judgment Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's.

There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.

We love because God first loved 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.

Jesus Christ is the one who came with the water of his baptism and the blood of his death. He came not only with the water, but with both the water and the blood. And the Spirit himself testifies that this is true, because the Spirit is truth.

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.

We have courage in God's presence, because we are sure that he hears us if we ask him for anything that is according to his will.