but whoever practices obedience to His message really has a perfect love of God in his heart. By this we can be sure that we are in union with Him:

Whoever continues to love his brother is always in the light, and he is no hindrance to others.

Stop loving the world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in loving the world, there is no love for the Father in his heart,

See what wonderful love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called God's children, and that is what we are! This is why the world does not know what we are, because it has never come to know Him.

This is the way to distinguish God's children from the devil's children. No one who fails to do right is God's child, and no one who fails to love his brother.

it is so because the message that you have heard from the beginning is this: We should love one another.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love our brothers. Whoever does not continue to love continues still in death.

We know what love is from the fact that He laid down His life for us; and so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

But if anyone has the world's means of supporting life and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how can love to God remain in him?

Dear children, let us stop loving with words or lips alone, but let us love with actions and in truth.

Dearly beloved, let us practice loving one another, because love originates with God, and everyone who practices loving is a child of God and knows God by experience.

Whoever does not love has never come to know God by experience, because God is love.

This is the way God's love for us has been shown, namely, God has sent His only Son into the world that we through Him might have life.

In this way is seen the true love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dearly beloved, if God has loved us so, we ought to love one another too.

No one has ever seen God; yet if we practice loving one another, God remains in union with us, and our love for Him attains perfection in our hearts,

So we know by experience and trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love continues in union with God and God in union with him.

Our love attains perfection through our having perfect confidence about the day of judgment, because here in this world we are living as He did.

There is no fear in love, and perfect love drives out fear, because fear pertains to punishment, and no one who is subject to fear has attained perfection in love.

We love, because He loved us first.

If anyone says, "I love God," and yet habitually hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

This is how we can be sure that we love the children of God, by continuing to love God and to obey His commands.

For love to God means this, to practice obedience to His commands, and His commands are not burdensome,