1
We saw him with our very own eyes.
We gazed upon him and heard him speak.
Our hands actually touched him,
the one who was from the beginning,
the Living Expression of God.
2
This Life-Giver was made visible
and we have seen him.
We testify to this truth:
the eternal Life-Giver
lived face-to-face with the Father
and has now dawned upon us.
3
So we proclaim to you
what we have seen and heard
about this Life-Giver
so that we may share and enjoy
this life together.
For truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son, Jesus, the Anointed One.
4 We are writing these things to you because we want to release to you our fullness of joy.
5 This is the life-giving message we heard him share and it’s still ringing in our ears. We now repeat his words to you: God is pure light. You will never find even a trace of darkness in him.
6 If we claim that we share life with him, but keep walking in the realm of darkness, we’re fooling ourselves and not living the truth.
7 But if we keep living in the pure light that surrounds him, we share unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we boast that we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and are strangers to the truth.
9 But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we claim that we’re not guilty of sin when God uncovers it with his light, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
1 You are my dear children, and I write these things to you so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does sin, we continually have a forgiving Redeemer who is face-to-face with the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 Here’s how we can be sure that we’ve truly come to know God: if we keep his commands.
4 If someone claims, “I have come to know God by experience,” yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phony and the truth finds no place in him.
5 But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word.We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God,
6 not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
7 Beloved, I’m not writing a new commandment to you, but an old one that you had from the beginning, and you’ve already heard it.
8 Yet, in a sense, it is a new commandment, as its truth is made manifest both in Christ and in you, because the darkness is disappearing and the true light is already blazing.
9 Anyone who says, “I am in the light,” while holding hatred in his heart toward a fellow believer is still in the darkness.
10 But the one who truly loves a fellow believer lives in the light, and there is nothing in him that will cause someone else to stumble.
11 But whoever hates a fellow believer lives in the darkness — stumbling around in the dark with no clue where he is going, for he is blinded by the darkness.
12 I remind you, dear children: your sins have been permanently removed because of the power of his name.
13 I remind you, fathers and mothers: you have a relationship with the One who has existed from the beginning.And I remind you, young people: you have defeated the Evil One.
14 I write these things to you, dear children, because you truly have a relationship with the Father. I write these things, fathers and mothers, because you have had a true relationship with him who is from the beginning. And I write these things, young people, because you are strong, the Word of God is treasured in your hearts, and you have defeated the Evil One.
15 Don’t set the affections of your heart on this world or in loving the things of the world. The love of the Father and the love of the world are incompatible.
16 For all that the world can offer us — the gratification of our flesh, the allurement of the things of the world, and the obsession with status and importance — none of these things come from the Father but from the world.
17 This world and its desires are in the process of passing away, but those who love to do the will of God live forever.
18 Dear children, the end of this age is near! You have heard that Antichrist is arising, and in fact, many enemies of Christ have already appeared, and this is how we know that we are living in the closing hour of this age.
19 For even though they were once a part of us, they withdrew from us because they were never really of our number. For if they had truly belonged to us they would have continued with us. By leaving our community of believers they made it obvious that they never really belonged to us.
20 But the Holy One has anointed you and you all know the truth.
21 So I’m writing you not because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and no lie belongs to the truth.
22 Who is the real liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is the real antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
23 Whoever rejects the Son rejects the Father. Whoever embraces the Son embraces the Father also.
24 So you must be sure to keep the message burning in your hearts; that is, the message of life you heard from the beginning. If you do, you will always be living in close fellowship with the Son and with the Father.
25 And he himself has promised us the never-ending life of the ages to come!
26 I’ve written these things about those who are attempting to lead you astray.
27 But the wonderful anointing you have received from God is so much greater than their deception and now lives in you. There’s no need for anyone to keep teaching you. His anointing teaches you all that you need to know, for it will lead you into truth, not a counterfeit. So just as the anointing has taught you, remain in him.
28 And now, dear children, remain in him, so that when he is revealed we may have joyful confidence and not be ashamed when we stand before him at his appearing.
29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who lives in righteousness has been divinely fathered by him.
1 Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children. The reason the world doesn’t recognize who we are is that they didn’t recognize him.
2 Beloved, we are God’s children right now; however, it is not yet apparent what we will become. But we do know that when it is finally made visible, we will be just like him, for we will see him as he truly is.
3 And all who focus their hope on him will always be purifying themselves, just as Jesus is pure.
4 Anyone who indulges in sin lives in moral anarchy, for the definition of sin is breaking God’s law.
5 And you know without a doubt that Jesus was revealed to eradicate sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in union with him will not sin.
6 But the one who continues sinning hasn’t seen him with discernment or known him by intimate experience.
7 Delightfully loved children, don’t let anyone divert you from this truth. The person who keeps doing what is right proves that he is righteous before God, even as the Messiah is righteous.
8 But the one who indulges in a sinful life is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was revealed was to undo and destroy the works of the devil.
9 Everyone who is truly God’s child will refuse to keep sinning because God’s seed remains within him, and he is unable to continue sinning because he has been fathered by God himself.
10 Here is how God’s children can be clearly distinguished from the children of the Evil One. Anyone who does not demonstrate righteousness and show love to fellow believers is not living with God as his source.
11 The beautiful message you’ve heard right from the start is that we should walk in self-sacrificing love toward one another.
12 We should not be like Cain, who yielded to the Evil One and brutally murdered his own brother, Abel. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s righteous.
13 So don’t be shocked, beloved brothers and sisters, if you experience the world’s hatred.
14 Yet we can be assured that we have been translated from spiritual death into spiritual life because we love the family of believers. A loveless life remains spiritually dead.
15 Everyone who keeps hating a fellow believer is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
16 This is how we have discovered love’s reality: Jesus sacrificed his life for us. Because of this great love, we should be willing to lay down our lives for one another.
17 If anyone sees a fellow believer in need and has the means to help him, yet shows no pity and closes his heart against him, how is it even possible that God’s love lives in him?
18 Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds.
19 We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in his presence.
20 Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience, and he knows everything there is to know about us.
21 My delightfully loved friends, when our hearts don’t condemn us, we have a bold freedom to speak face-to-face with God.
22 And whatever we ask of him we receive, because we keep his commands. And by our beautiful intentions we continue to do what brings pleasure to him.
23 So these are his commands: that we continually place our trust in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we keep loving one another, just as he has commanded us.
24 For all who obey his commands find their lives joined in union with him, and he lives and flourishes in them. We know and have proof that he constantly lives and flourishes in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.
1 Delightfully loved friends, don’t trust every spirit, but carefully examine what they say to determine if they are of God, because many false prophets have mingled into the world.
2 Here’s the test for those with the genuine Spirit of God: they will confess Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh.
3 Everyone who does not acknowledge that Jesus is from God has the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and is already active in the world.
4 Little children, you can be certain that you belong to God and have conquered them, for the One who is living in you is far greater than the one who is in the world.
5 They belong to this world and they articulate the spirit of this world, and the world listens to them.
6 But we belong to God, and whoever truly knows God listens to us. Those who refuse to listen to us do not belong to God. That is how we can know the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
7 Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him.
8 The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love.
9 The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him.
10 This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins.
11 Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!
12 No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us.
13 And he has given us his Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that he lives in us and that we live in him.
14 Moreover, we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 Those who give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God live in God, and God lives in them.
16 We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us.God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.
17 By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world.
18 Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.
19 Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.
20 Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see?
21 For he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also demonstrate love to others.
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah is God’s spiritual child and has been fathered by God himself. And everyone who loves Father God loves his children as well.
2 This is how we can be sure that we love the children of God: by having a passionate love for God and by obedience to his commands.
3 True love for God means obeying his commands, and his commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens.
4 You see, every child of God overcomes the world, for our faith is the victorious power that triumphs over the world.
5 So who are the world conquerors, defeating its power? Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 Jesus Christ is the One who was revealed as God’s Son by his water baptism and by the blood of his cross — not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms this with his testimony.
7 So we have these three constant witnesses giving their evidence:
8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three are in agreement.
9 If we accept the testimony of men, how much more should we accept the more authoritative testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son?
10 Those who believe in the Son of God have the living testimony in their hearts. Those who don’t believe have made God out to be a liar by not believing the testimony God has confirmed about his Son.
11 This is the true testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life has its source in his Son.
12 Whoever has the Son has eternal life; whoever does not have the Son does not possess eternal life.
13 I’ve written this letter to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you will be assured and know without a doubt that you have eternal life.
14 Since we have this confidence, we can also have great boldness before him, for if we present any request agreeable to his will, he will hear us.
15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we also know that we have obtained the requests we ask of him.
16 If anyone observes a fellow believer habitually sinning in a way that doesn’t lead to death, you should keep interceding in prayer that God will give that person life. Now, there is a sin that leads to death, and I’m not encouraging you to pray for those who commit it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin, but there is sin that does not result in death.
18 We are convinced that everyone fathered by God does not make sinning a way of life, because the Son of God protects the child of God, and the Evil One cannot touch him.
19 We know that we are God’s children and that the whole world lies under the misery and influence of the Evil One.
20 And we know that the Son of God has made our understanding come alive so that we can know by experience the One who is true. And we are in him who is true, God’s Son, Jesus Christ — the true God and eternal life!
21 So, little children, guard yourselves from worshiping anything but him.