Test the Spirits
4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
God Is Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (ESV)
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world…
5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
Many people are being led astray by false teaching, believing that you can sin all you want and still be a Christian, that you don’t have to share your faith with anyone, and so on. These people believe they are Christians, but they either listen to false teachers who deceive them, or they follow their own sinful nature, which is also leading them astray. That is why it is important to make sure that we are receiving solid Biblical teaching and APPLYING it. Without such teaching, it becomes too easy to get sucked into the world’s view of God, which they make up and change to suit their whims. But if the teaching we receive is solid Biblical teaching (as the teaching at CBC is), then we need to obey the teaching, knowing that it directly goes against what the world wants to hear… but we need to be bold and tell them anyway.
17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
This is what 1 John is about: helping us have confidence on the day of judgment! We want to know that we are Christians who will be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity. When we preached through this book we made up something called The Assurance Triangle. The three sides represented loving God, loving others and obeying God’s commands. These were three tests to see if we were a Christian or not according to 1 John. If we are doing these three things that is a good gauge that we have eternal life! How exciting to know we will be with our Lord forever!
4You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
This verse is amazing because it tells us that the Holy Spirit in us is our powerful helper to overcome any antichrists – false teachers who claim that any other way besides Jesus is the way to eternal life. I love the truth stated in this verse…that our God is mightier than the devil. That is true truth that we need to cling to. The devil will try to discourage us and make us feel powerless against his attacks. The truth is that we have God in us who is much greater than the devil and we can live in victory through Him.
wow this chapter is intense.and Mike could not have said it better!!
5They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
c’mon!how true is this?how dissappointing is this?VERY!There are people out there who think they are doing the right thing.they want to “help the people” yet they lead them to false Gods, like themselves.a great example could be hitler.everyone knows of this man, and what he did.he glorified himself, and made the people think that he could fix everything and make everything better for them…yet in the end, so many people were killed.
let me try to word this correctly…nothing, no one can get to the father except through him! well that sounds reassurring for us!but others dont know that truth.they believe that certain people should be worshiped, because certain people say comforting things that sound good and also like they will help on this temporary earth.we need to make sure we are listening to solid truths, and correct facts(like cbc:)) because satin is on the attack, and he wants to get as many people away from the Lord as possible!here are a few verses that are pretty snazzy:)
Hebrews 12:15 “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” SALVATION IS BY GRACE.know that, remember that, memorize that:)
ALSO
Matthew 7:15-16 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.By their fruit you will recognize them.” oh that is soo true!they are like a can of soup.the label says ‘creamy chicken noodle soup’ and when the can is opened up it doesnt have yummy creamy chicken noodle soup, but it has nasty lima beans.mhmm thats how it is!
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
this is such a powerful verse! like John 3:16 says, God loved us, sinners, who deserve hell, so much that He sent His perfect Son to be beaten and mocked, and crucified, so that we can be with Him in heaven. that is what love really is. no matter how much we love God, that will never compare to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. as Christians we should look at that love and try to embrace it and copy its example. of course we arent going to claim we give salvation, but like this chapter is about, we should show our love, becuase if we don’t love, the God is not in us, because God is love, like is said in verse 8
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
If we do not love everyone, even our enemies, then we are going against God and we do not know him. This chapter really convicted me in my life and i know some changes that are going to have to be made.
17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
I remember hearing a sermon that was all about confidence and how important it is. We need to be 100% confident that we will go to heaven when we die. To be confident of this, we should be “living like Jesus did”. If we are obeying God’s commandments, we have nothing to be afraid of and no reason not to have complete confidence. I need to make sure that I ALWAYS have confidence in myself and in God… 100%!!
Intense!!!!
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Love this verse because everyday its a reminder of what He did just for us. We need to share our love more like Jesus did. We need to take this in and put it into practice. This is true love that we need to do, but not dieing because we dont have the supernatural power to do what the Lord did. Love these verses can’t wait to read more!!
God Bless,
Rebekah Foreman
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
The ultimate love is when someone is willing to give their life for you….God sent his only son to die……..FOR US!!!!! When your sister or brother wrongs you and you are really angry at them the last thing going through your mind is love…….but we need to be able to love others, even if they wrong you……..we were sinners! Horrible wretched sinners, and Christ STILL LOVED US and He died for us!!!!! That boggles my mind!!! I cant believe that He did that for us………..But it says in verse 11 that since He loved us….we need to love others also…
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
We did not know love before God saved us. But what’s amazing is that He still loved us. We were in rebellion against Him, but He took our punishment. I don’t know if it’s possible to love like that, but Christ called us to love others like He loved us, so that is what we need to do. We need to pray for God to continually change our hearts though because we can’t do anything on our own. And what’s even more amazing is that when we love like this we can have full confidence that we are in Him and do not have to be afraid on judgment day.
18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love
How can we truly say that we love God, if we’re afraid to approach people and tell them about His son and what He’s done for us?! His love should compel us to do it and the love He has for others. We should be out there tell’n others like they were going to die in the next second! Never give up on preach’n the gospel to others because you never know if they are a chosen one of God. God loves them just as much as He loves us and they deserve that second chance at life! His love for me drives out any fear that was ever there and it’s very encouraging to see that. :)
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Like Michelle said before people were prais’n Hitler for all the “good” works he did, why aren’t we out there tell’n others about the true God and how those that do not proclaim that Jesus is God are false. They’re following false teaching and God knows that they are falling into a pit of sin. God calls us to evangelize so lets go do it! :D
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
This is a great passage. I know there are some other great verses, but immediately this one hit me. It’s such a simple concept. Because God loves us, we are supposed to copy Him and love each other. The reason I noticed this is becuase I know that sometimes it’s really hard to love others. When people like our siblings get on our nerves, it’s get’s easy to not love them. So this verse convicted me, because in most cases, I tend to fight with them, and leave angry. Then I let my anger sit, and it makes it worse. I realized that the best way to fuffil this verse is just to remember we are supposed to love each other, not hate them. So we should make ammends with them and move on, remembering This is what God wants. So don’t be a hater. Love each other.
P.S- Great comments Michelle and Bethany!
20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
We cannot say that we love God and hate others it just doesn’t work that way. If we loved God we would keep his commandments (John 14:15). God calls us to love one another 2nd commandment (Matthew 22:39). And we especially need to love our Christian brothers…If God loved us we can love other…ok :)
18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Great comment B, how odd that we actually chose the same verse to comment on today!! I really loved this verse, I read over it so many times because it took me a while to comprehend what it was saying!! Fear is a very powerful feeling, and we cannot have fear take over what we know is right: loving others!! Our fear for God should compel us to ignore our fear for man and love others more!! :D
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Right away we are being warned to not be deceived by false teachers. I think that this is a lot more common then we think. Many religious teachers are twisting the gospel just enough to where it is pleasing to the ear but is completely false. We have to be always on our guard against false teachers. We need to make sure that everything that we are being taught is directly from the Bible, and therefore is directly from God.
9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
I had an interesting talk with a girl last night about her and her boyfriend (mind you, she was a non-Christian) because she didn’t know if she “loved” him. She claimed “how do we even define love?” I pointed her to 1 Corinthians 13 but I could tell she wasn’t taking me seriously. Nonetheless, I still felt I needed to mention this passage about how God is absolutely, unbelievably loving. Here, love is sacrificial and assertive. Even though we didn’t love God, he loved us enough to send Jesus Christ to rescue us. He took the initiative and decided to lay down his life for his enemies. Talk about serious love!! Just looking at how unloving we can be as humans, its unfathomable to think that God would love us that much. It’s such a great reminder that if we are to imitate God’s love, we need to be sacrificial toward others even if they don’t like (or love) us. My prayer is that we can love like Christ loved us. Believe me, it stands out!!!
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
This verse reminds me of Matthew chapter 4 when Satan was tempting Jesus. Satan kept on saying if you are truly the son of God, then do this. Every time Jesus just owned Satan by giving him some scripture. So this verse is reminding us that there are so much people out in this world who preach the Word wrong. So he is saying that we need to test those people to see whether they are speaking of God are from Him, or if they are speaking falsely. That is why you got to listen really good when you are at a different Church, to see if that Church is really legit or not.
10.) This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Again we seen yet another great example of God’s amazing love in John. This love is something that every body needs, as Christians, it is our job to let God’s love show through us in everything we do.
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
I like this verse because of how many different religions there are today. So many people will believe in a lie their whole life, and we need to be the ones to spread the true Spirit!!
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
This verse really stuck out to me, there are so many temptations and people trying to pull us away from God even if they don’t know it! and with school just starting or right around the corner, alot of temptations and trials are going to be bombarding us every day! and to overcome those temptations we really need to dig deep in Gods word so we can have victory over them! This verse really encouraged me to do just that. Our God is “greater than the one in this world” ( 1 John 4:4) and He alone can give us the strength to say no to thing of this world and continue to long for Him!
I think that we should test ourselves daily so that we know for sure that we will spend eternity in Gods presence. We should fear God and his wrath so that we will live according to his commands.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
I think that this verse is a good verse to have memorized because you can bring it up when you are sharing the Gospel to others.
Great posts everyone! It is so encouraging to see so many Christians meditating on God’s Word!
John’s main focus when he writes is love; we can see it in his gospel (John 3:16) and all over this chapter. We need to be the same way! If God is Love, and if He created love, and showed us true love through the death of His son on the cross, then we deffenitely need to be abounding in love (Philippians 1:9)! Love should be our defining factor, just like it is Christ’s main characteristic; after all, if we are being sanctified (being made like God) to Jesus, then love should be a main part of who we are!
19We love because he first loved us.
Well i dont think it can be any clearer in this verse by saying that we need to love others because of Christ’s love. God gave us the example of love by sacrificing his son’s life for us sinners….that is the true divine love we should strive to give! In John 13: 34-35 Jesus says that the world will know that we are his followers by our love. Not just a feeling or attraction for someone else but a true unselfish concern or affection for one of God’s children. Where like pastor Bobby said in last weeks sermon that we must put the other person before ourselves so that we can humbly and truly love them.
3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
There are so many religions today that do not acknowledge Jesus for who He truely is, that He is God. They don’t even bring Christ our Lord and Savior into the picture, this verse really exposes those other religions, and this verse is great for evangelism.
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
This verse tells us that we need to rely on God d otake care of us because he is always there, and he loves us. If we love others is he will always be with us.
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
I like this verse a lot. It says we ought to love one another because God loved us by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins(v.10). What a great verse to know that we ought to love others because of God sending His Son out of love for us. I remember from a girl’s workshop when Christa taught on this verse and said that, even if we don’t get along to well with a person we need to love them and be reminded that God loved us first even though we are sinners and can’t be with Him except for through His Son.
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
God is love. People who do not have a relationship with Christ do not know how to love others. That sounds really sad to me, and I am so glad that I am a follower of Christ and that I have a personal relationship with him! Since God is love, then we live in him! That is so great and awesome to know!