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We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
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But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
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My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
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Love and Hatred for Fellow Believers
We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.
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But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:
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Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
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Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.
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On Not Loving the World
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
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Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.
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See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
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This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
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More on Love and Hatred
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
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We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
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This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
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If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
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Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
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And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
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This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
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but 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.
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God’s Love and Ours
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
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Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
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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.
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This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
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Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
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No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
