"My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
~1 John 2:1
In our names of God series, we come now to another of my favorite names, Advocate. This special name points to the fact that Jesus is our Defender, the One Who intercedes on our behalf and is our intermediary.
One of the things I love most about this passage is what it reveals to us about the heart of Christ on our behalf. I come from a background of legalism wherein I was always beating myself up for my sin struggles and viewing the Lord as being Someone Who looked down on me with a scowl on His face and His proverbial arms crossed each and every time I fell back into sin again.
Those thoughts and feelings were nothing but lies from the enemy. Because the truth of the matter, the reality in which we live, is that we have an Advocate with the Father - Jesus Christ the righteous. And when our Heavenly Father looks down upon us, He sees nothing but the righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to our account. We are declared righteous in His sight because of the work and sacrifice of our Advocate, Jesus.
So the next time you sin? Yes, repent. Yes, feel and experience conviction for that sin. But do not sit in grief and despair over it. Instead, delight in and be thankful for the good grace of Jesus as Paul Himself did. At the end of Romans 7, Paul laments that he does not do the things he knows he should and does the things he knows he should not. But rather than sitting in that frustration and grief, he follows that confession with the beautiful truth of Romans 8:1, that there is "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus".
Praise God for the Advocate we have in Christ Jesus!
Reflection Questions:
1) Have you ever stopped and taken the time to really think about what it means that Jesus is our Advocate?
2) How does it make you feel that Jesus is busy advocating for you?
3) If you were to explain to someone else what it means for Jesus to be their advocate, how would you put it into your own words?
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