Breathless headlines to the contrary, lies and deception are nothing new. Even in the time of the apostle John there were lots of spirits, all kinds of people and ideas in the world that pretended to be good and right. So, how can we know what to believe?

Well, we might think we can figure things out for ourselves, using our own reason. We might want to rely on our individual experience or our traditions to determine what is best for us to believe and to do. Instead, John urges us to use more reliable measures.

In 4:2, we see that trust in and allegiance to Jesus Himself is an indispensable component of the truth. No matter how many other good ideas it might include, the reality is that any spirit, any religion, or any philosophy that doesn’t acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah sent from God to take on human flesh, has a fundamental problem at its core. In fact, as 4:3 makes clear, anyone that doesn’t bow the knee to Christ is actually opposed to Him – that’s what it means to be antichrist.

And what is it that our Lord commands us to do? 4:7 and 8 remind us of His Great Commandment – we are to love one another, because God is love. Any spirit, any religion, any philosophy that legitimizes hatred of others is fundamentally flawed, no matter how loyal to Jesus it might otherwise claim to be. You can’t act out of hatred if you are truly following the Man Who laid down His life for undeserving sinners.

And 4:6 reminds us that we have another infallible standard of truth on which we can rely – the Word of God. John reminds us that he has been sent by God, and so we should listen to him and to the testimony of the other apostles. That means that anyone who rejects the truth of the scriptures is actually following the spirit of error, no matter how loving and loyal to Jesus he might otherwise seem to be.

So today, no matter what other ideas clamor for our attention and allegiance, let’s make the Person of Christ, the love of God and the truth of God’s Word our guides for living. That’s the only way to overcome all the lies that swirl around us.

I John 4:1-8 (NASB)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.
6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.