Continuing the Meditation on 1 John

1 John 4: 1- 6 - Testing the spirits.

When I read 1 John 4:1-6, I remember that these words were written in another time, to people facing different challenges. So I ask - how does this speak to me now, in this moment? At first it can seem almost a pointless conversation with God. Who around me denies that Jesus came in the flesh, except those who do not believe at all? And even they are not mine to challenge - only to witness to. Their disbelief doesn’t shake my faith. Even among those who differ with me in matters of doctrine, most still confess that He came in the flesh. So what is relevant for me today in these verses?

The wonder of contemplative prayer is that I can simply sit with God. Though I’m most often distracted and rarely sense His presence, somehow He still reaches me - quietly, with what He knows is needed in that moment for His purpose. Through this, my direction and faith become clearer.

I’ve come to see that the “spirits” John speaks of are not the people around me who fail to believe, but the inner movements within my own being that resist Christ’s life in me. In prayer, I try to keep all else outside the surface of my awareness - anything beyond the outer layer of my skin, holding to a few simple words that help me stay present to Him. The distractions that draw me away are, in a sense, the denials of Christ. And when I am still, I sometimes sense subtler forces - those inner voices that question love, hope, and trust. What else could they be but the very spirits that deny Him?

These, I think, are the spirits of the antichrist that the scripture warns about - the ones truly relevant today. The testing of spirits begins not in the outer world, but in the inner one - the kingdom within. There lies both the danger and the path to truth.