In order to be assured that we are conducting our lives according to God’s character, we must love God and our fellow believers, because God loved us first.

1 John 4:12-21

12 No one has ever seen God. Nevertheless, if we love each other, it is evident that God lives within us and that we love others just like he intends/wants us to do. 13 I will tell you how we can be sure that we have a close relationship with God and that God is within us: He has put his Spirit within us. 14 We apostles have seen ◄God’s Son/the one who is also God►, and we tell people that the Father sent him to save the people in the world [MTY] from being punished for their sins. 15 So those who affirm/say that Jesus is the ◄Son of/one who is also► God, God is within them, and they have a close relationship with God. 16 We have experienced how God loves us and we believe that he loves us. As a result, we love others. Because God’s nature is to love people, those who continue to love others have a close relationship with God, and God has a close relationship with them. 17 We should love others completely. And if we do that, when the time comes for him to judge us, we will be confident that he will not condemn us (OR, that we have a close relationship with him). We will be confident of that because of our conducting our lives in this world as Christ did. 18 We will not be afraid of God if we truly love him, because those who love God completely cannot possibly be afraid of him. We would be afraid only if we thought that he would punish us. So those who are afraid of God certainly are not loving God completely. 19 We love God and our fellow believers because God loved us first. 20 So those who say “I love God” but hate a fellow believer are lying. Those who do not love one of their fellow believers, whom they have seen, certainly cannot be loving God, whom they have not seen. 21 Keep in mind that this is what God has commanded us: If we love him, we must also love our fellow believers.