As Christians we are called to be set apart from the world. One of the characteristics that sets us apart is the presence of love in our hearts and minds. In 1 John 4 he writes to believers to be decerning about false prophets or people who interpret God’s word in a wrong way. He says that the best way to do that is to test the spirits. A spirit of the world firstly would not testify that Jesus had come in the flesh. This is a point to remember later.
He goes on to say that the spirit of the world is not to be feared by believers because they, through Jesus, have already overcome it. His next step in decerning a spirit is that if they are of the world they will only respond to what the world speaks. If they are of God then the words of God they will listen to. John goes on to say,
“We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
I John 4:6 NKJV
Next he writes that as believers we should love one another because that’s how we identify that we are God’s children. We love because God is love. John writes again,
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
I John 4:8-11 NKJV
By displaying love we become a way that people can see God through us.
“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”
I John 4:12-14 NKJV
This is the first part of the examination of 1 John 4. We can conclude that as believers we are uniquely different from the false prophets of the world by our love that we possess. False prophets can be found out by examining if their words respond to that of the world’s ideas. Keep these ideas in mind for the next installment next week.