Confident HopeFaith Gives Us Hope
Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5) A Conquering Faith1 John 4:1-6
The MessageDon’t Believe Everything You Hear4 My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world. 2-3 Here’s how you test for the genuine Spirit of God. Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person—comes from God and belongs to God. And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has nothing in common with God. This is the spirit of antichrist that you heard was coming. Well, here it is, sooner than we thought! 4-6 My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world’s language, and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception. For ReflectionHow do you decide what is true and what is not? So many false prophets and preachers who profane the Gospel bombard us each day, and many choose the profane rather than the truth. Look to the Holy Spirit that resides within you. If you listen closely, you will find that the truth is based on God's love for you and his people. Others who do not understand this profound love speak from self-determination and sacrifice nothing but the souls of those who answer the false prophet's call. PrayPray and have the courage to resist the call to corporal desire. Instead, pray and act in ways that express the profound love of God. | 
