1. Dear friends, don’t believe all people who say that they have the Spirit. Instead, test them. See whether the spirit they have is from God, because there are many false prophets in the world.
2. This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit: Every person who declares that Jesus Christ has come as a human has the Spirit that is from God.
3. But every person who doesn’t declare that Jesus Christ has come as a human has a spirit that isn’t from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that you have heard is coming. That spirit is already in the world.
4. Dear children, you belong to God. So you have won the victory over these people, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
5. These people belong to the world. That’s why they speak the thoughts of the world, and the world listens to them.