This is how God's children and the Devil's children are distinguished. No person who fails to practice righteousness and to love his brother is from God.

No one who has been born from God practices sin, because God's seed abides in him. Indeed, he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born from God.

But whoever continually keeps his commandments is the kind of person in whom God's love has truly been perfected. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:

The anointing you received from God abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you this. Instead, because God's anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not a lie, abide in him, as he taught you to do.

This is how you can recognize God's Spirit: Every spirit who acknowledges that Jesus the Messiah has become human and remains so is from God.

This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him.

This is how we know that we love God's children: we love God and keep his commandments.

If we accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater, because it is the testimony of God and because he has testified about his Son.

I have written to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. I have written to you, young people, because you are strong and because God's word remains in you and you have overcome the evil one.

And the world and its desires are fading away, but the person who does God's will remains forever.

See what kind of love the Father has given us: We are called God's children and that is what we are! For this reason the world does not recognize us, because it did not recognize him, either.

Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we will be like has not been revealed yet. We know that when the Messiah is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.