Do you need an Advocate?

An advocate is a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy for someone else. The dictionary example says, "He was an untiring advocate of economic reform."

The Bible example says our Advocate is “Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Our holy and just God does not charge His believing children with sin, because Christ has completely satisfied the justice of God for us. He advocates or pleads the merits of his righteousness and blood for us in heaven, “ever-living to intercede for us.”

I’ve read novels where a person in authority takes on the responsibility of being an advocate for someone accused of a crime. The advocate is convinced that person is innocent and goes to bat for them, usually to stand up for them in court and to find the true guilty person. The story sometimes takes a twist when the accused person turns out to be guilty. He did the crime and his actions prove that the advocate is wasting his time and energy.

Not so with Jesus. He lives forever to go to bat for sinners. We are not innocent but guilty, yet His efforts to save us do not depend on our behavior, good or bad.

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10–12)

Instead, He took our sin and guilt so that we can be forgiven. Those who believe in Christ are set free from the law of sin and death because our Advocate died in our place, satisfying the wrath of God and releasing us from the penalty we deserve.

But what about the sin I commit after putting my faith in Jesus Christ? The world expects me to live a holy and Christlike life (even though they often persecute people who do), and when I fail, they dismiss me as a fake or a fraud. They want to see results, proof that my Advocate has not wasted His time and energy in making me His child.

God is not messing around, picking people to be saved and then leaving us in a sinful state. He gives new hearts, new lives. Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, lives in me. His presence makes a difference. I am charged by God to cooperate with His transforming work. Yet God knows my tendency to fail. He moved John to write:

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:1–6)

The difference between a mere profession of faith and an actual possession of faith is that the Advocate has not wasted His time. The guilty persons are made new and their lives are changed. Our problem with sin has been given a solution. We who believe are no longer are held captive to sin. We can cooperate with God and choose otherwise.

Those who have this new life prove it, especially to ourselves. Knowing we are the children of God motivates us to live in a new and godly way, empowered by the Spirit of God. We trust our Advocate with any sin we commit, but we also trust Him to perfect Himself in us as He supports our cause — or more accurately, He supports His cause in us. His goal is that I become like Him!

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1–3)

The world does not know Jesus, which is the biggest reason they look for perfection in Christians — but persecute us when we live holy lives. They did that to Jesus who was sinless. We are not sinless, but as we cooperate with our Advocate to purify ourselves and become like Him, we are marked as God’s children, and as targets.

^^^^^^^^

Jesus, what a wonder to know Your love. Every day I fight that old nature that desires to rebel against You, and every day You remind me that You are my Savior. I am rescued from sin and death and in You, I already have victory. That hope continues to motivate and encourage me to cooperate with what You started and will finish in my life. As for persecution, I trust You with that also.