4
Continue to test the teachings you hear to know whether or not they are from God. You should test those who teach them by whether or not they acknowledge that Jesus Christ came in human form and also by what kind of people listen to that kind of teaching.
1 John 4:1-6
1 Dear friends, many people who have a false message are teaching it to people [MTY]. So do not trust every message that someone claims/says that God’s Spirit [MTY] gave to him. Instead, ◄test/think carefully about► the teachings that you hear in order to know whether they are from God or not. 2 I will tell you how to recognize teachings that come from the Spirit of God: Those who affirm/say that Jesus Christ came from God to become a human like us are teaching a message that is from God. 3 But those who do not affirm/say that about Jesus are not teaching a message from God. They are teachers who oppose Christ. You have heard that people like that are coming to be among us. Even now they are already here!
4 As for you who are very dear to me, you belong to God, and you have refused the false messages that those people teach, because God, who enables you to do what he wants, is ◄greater/more powerful► than ◄Satan/the devil►, who enables ◄godless people/people who conduct their lives in a way that displeases God► [MTY]. 5 As for those who are teaching what is false, they are ◄godless people/people whose lives are displeasing to God► [MTY]. Because of that, they teach what ◄godless people/people whose lives are displeasing to God► [MTY] want to hear. That is why the ◄godless people/people whose lives displease God► [MTY] listen to them. 6 As for us (exc), because we belong to God, whoever ◄knows/has a close relationship with► God listens to us. But those who do not belong to God do not listen to us. That is how we can know whether the things that people are teaching [MTY] are true or whether they are false, and deceiving people.
We must love each other. God shows us what real love is.
1 John 4:7-11
7 Dear friends, we must love each other, because God enables us to love each other, and because those who love their fellow believers have become God’s children and ◄know/have a close relationship with► him. 8 God’s nature is to love all people. So those who do not love their fellow believers do not ◄know/have a relationship with► God. 9 I will tell you how God has shown us that he loves us: He sent ◄his only Son/the only one who was also God► to live on the earth to enable us to live eternally as a result of our trusting in what he accomplished for us by dying for us. 10 And God has shown us what it means to love another person: It does not mean that we loved God, but it means that God loved us and sent ◄his Son/the one who was also God► to sacrifice his life in order that our sins might be forgiven {he might forgive our sins}. 11 Dear friends, since God loves us like that, we certainly ought to love each other!
In order to be assured that we are conducting our lives according to God’s character, we must love God and our fellow believers, because God loved us first.
1 John 4:12-21
12 No one has ever seen God. Nevertheless, if we love each other, it is evident that God lives within us and that we love others just like he intends/wants us to do. 13 I will tell you how we can be sure that we have a close relationship with God and that God is within us: He has put his Spirit within us. 14 We apostles have seen ◄God’s Son/the one who is also God►, and we tell people that the Father sent him to save the people in the world [MTY] from being punished for their sins. 15 So those who affirm/say that Jesus is the ◄Son of/one who is also► God, God is within them, and they have a close relationship with God. 16 We have experienced how God loves us and we believe that he loves us. As a result, we love others. Because God’s nature is to love people, those who continue to love others have a close relationship with God, and God has a close relationship with them. 17 We should love others completely. And if we do that, when the time comes for him to judge us, we will be confident that he will not condemn us (OR, that we have a close relationship with him). We will be confident of that because of our conducting our lives in this world as Christ did. 18 We will not be afraid of God if we truly love him, because those who love God completely cannot possibly be afraid of him. We would be afraid only if we thought that he would punish us. So those who are afraid of God certainly are not loving God completely. 19 We love God and our fellow believers because God loved us first. 20 So those who say “I love God” but hate a fellow believer are lying. Those who do not love one of their fellow believers, whom they have seen, certainly cannot be loving God, whom they have not seen. 21 Keep in mind that this is what God has commanded us: If we love him, we must also love our fellow believers.