Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 1 John 4:1-3
In 1 john 4, John encourages us to measure everything that comes our way against the word of God. There were false prophets trying their best to lead the new Christians away from the truth and John gave them guidelines, so they could discern where people were coming from. He told them to test the spirits
What Are You Attracted to? What draws you in? Whatever it is, I can assure you that there are false prophet or demons out there that mimics it exactly. Satan and false prophets do not come into your life looking like something you want to avoid at all costs. They come in costume, incognito, so you don’t realize it. They know exactly what you want to hear, and they say it. Then they draw you in little by little with ideas and charm and before you know it, you are hoodwinked.
John told them that only a true spirit of God will believe that Jesus came in the flesh, that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. Everything changed for the world when Jesus came in the flesh. The difference is a half Christian point of view. If someone is a true believer, you can see it in their lives:
They walk in the light- If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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 cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:6-7
They love, not hate- Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him[b] there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 1 John 2:9-11
They don’t practice righteousness or love others- By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10
Some popular misrepresentations of Christ and Christianity today are:
- It doesn’t matter if you walk an aisle or get baptized, as long as you are a good person.
- I believe that Jesus lived but he shouldn’t get to say whether or not I go to heaven. Can He really “save” me or was he just a regular man?
- Is heaven real anyway? Or just a story?
We are called to love the people of this world, but we can love them without losing our discernment – in this world but not of this world. If there is someone or some thing in your life that is drawing you away from Jesus, you may need to take a step back, put in some prayer time, and ask yourself if you are seeing the truth of the situation. Filter it through John’s test and make sure it measures up with God’s words.
They are from the world; therefore, they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:5-6
