Study Desk

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

We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because he gave us his Spirit.

If God's love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus.

Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.

We love because God first loved us.

How do we know that we love God's children? We know because we love God and we obey his commands.

because everyone who is a child of God has the power to win against the world.

Whoever believes in the Son of God has the truth that God told us. But people who do not believe God make God a liar, because they do not believe what God told us about his Son.

We love you because of the truth—the truth that lives in us. That truth will be with us forever.

These are the people who divide you. They are not spiritual, because they don't have the Spirit.

Look, Jesus is coming with the clouds! Everyone will see him, even those who pierced him. All peoples of the earth will cry loudly because of him. Yes, this will happen! Amen.

I am John, your fellow believer. We are together in Jesus, and we share these things: suffering, the kingdom, and patient endurance. I was on the island of Patmos because I was faithful to God's message and to the truth of Jesus.

"But you have a few people in your group there in Sardis who have kept themselves clean. They will walk with me. They will wear white clothes, because they are worthy.

"Our Lord and God! You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power. You made all things. Everything existed and was made because you wanted it."

I cried and cried because there was no one who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.

And they all sang a new song to the Lamb: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were killed, and with your blood sacrifice you bought people for God from every tribe, language, race of people, and nation.

The Lamb opened the fifth seal. Then I saw some souls under the altar. They were the souls of those who had been killed because they were faithful to God's message and to the truth they had received.

Then the star opened the hole leading to the pit. Smoke came up from the hole like smoke from a big furnace. The sun and sky became dark because of the smoke from the hole.

Everyone on the earth will be happy because these two are dead. They will have parties and send each other gifts. They will do this because these two prophets brought much suffering to the people living on earth.

The elders said, "We give thanks to you, Lord God All-Powerful. You are the one who is and who always was. We thank you because you have used your great power and have begun to rule.