1Jo 5 | 20C | STEP | Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ has received the new Life from God; and every one who loves him who gave that Life loves him who has received it.

‏ 1 John 5

A Christian’s Faith and Confidence

1 Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ has received the new Life from God; and every one who loves him who gave that Life loves him who has received it. 2 By this we know that we love God’s Children — when we love God and carry out his commands. 3 For to love God is to lay his commands to heart; and his commands are not burdensome, 4 because all that has received the new Life from God conquers the world. And this is the power that has conquered the world — our faith! 5 Who is he that conquers the world but the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 He it is whose Coming was attested by means of Water and Blood — Jesus Christ himself; not by Water only, but by Water and by Blood. And there is the Spirit also to bear testimony, and the Spirit is Truth itself. 7 It is a three-fold testimony — 8 that of the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood — and these three are at one. 9 We accept the testimony of men, but God’s testimony is still stronger; and there is the testimony of God — the fact that he has already borne testimony about his Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has that testimony within him. He who does not believe God has made God a liar, by refusing to believe in that testimony which he has borne about his Son. 11 And that testimony is that God gave us Immortal Life, and that this Life is in his Son. 12 He who finds the Son finds Life; he who does not find the Son of God does not find Life.

13 I write this to you, that you may realise that you have found Immortal Life — you who believe in the Name of the Son of God. 14 And this is the confidence with which we approach him, that whenever we ask anything that is in accordance with his will, he listens to us. 15 And if we realise that he listens to us — whatever we ask — we realise that we have what we have asked from him. 16 If any one sees his Brother committing some sin that is not a deadly sin, he will ask, and so be the means of giving Life to him — to any whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin; about that I do not say that a man should pray. 17 Every wrong action is sin, and there is sin that is not deadly.

18 We know that no one who has received the new Life from God lives in sin. No, he who has received the new Life from God keeps the thought of God in his heart, and then the Evil One does not touch him. 19 We realise that we come from God, while all the world is under the influence of the Evil One. 20 We realise, too, that the Son of God has come among us, and has given us the discernment to know the True God; and we are in union with the True God by our union with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the True God and he is Immortal Life. 21 My Children, guard yourselves against false ideas of God.