1 John 2:1
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
There is an attitude among many believers that is devilish and not Godly, and that is to destroy the sinner instead of advocating for their restoration. One thing I have been attacked for, criticized about, and had friends push me away is that I believe the fallen need someone to advocate for them to be restored. I believe in the restoration of any person. I often say that people do bad things because sin broke them, but if sin is removed from their lives, you will remove the bad from them. If you were to visit my church, you would find many people God has restored because we have a church that believes in restoring the fallen.
God commands that ye sin not. Certainly, we should not look live in sin. The desire of every believer should be to live their life without sin. However, we know that is impossible because we still live in our flesh. 1 John 1:8 says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Yes, we should live our lives without sin, but God says that we will sin.
Though God commands us not to sin, He also says that if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He reminds us in the next verse that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. My question to you is, did Christ’s payment for our sin only cover one sin or all sin? Of course, it covered all sin. God is saying that the moment a believer sins, Jesus advocates to the Father to remind Him that their sins are paid. Jesus advocates or argues that He believes we can do better. In other words, Jesus publicly supports us despite the sin we committed.
Another thing I want to point out is that this verse does not say that Christ only advocates for us one time. This verse shows that Jesus is our advocate any time we sin. Every time we do wrong, Jesus runs to the Father to advocate or plead on our behalf. You could say that Jesus is our moral support. He is the One who believes that we can do better. Jesus advocates that our sins are paid, and that we will do better once sin is removed from our lives.
If Jesus is willing to advocate for you, you ought to be willing to advocate for others when they do wrong. The one thing someone needs who sins is to know that others still believe in them. Sin often tells the one who has sinned that nobody loves them or wants them anymore, which is a lie of the Devil. However, many believers advocate more for the Devil’s agenda of destroying a fallen believer than advocating Christ’s agenda to restore the fallen. If Christ is willing to be our advocate when we do wrong, the least we can do is advocate for others when they do wrong.
Moreover, if Christ doesn't just advocate one time for us, but He advocates time and time again, we should be willing to advocate for others no matter how many times they mess up. The ministry of restoration is often a heartbreaking ministry because those you try to restore will often trip up and fall back into sin; however, you must never give up on advocating for them if they are to be restored back to usefulness. It takes Christ’s love working in you to be someone’s advocate. However, one of the great joys of the Christian walk is to see those you advocated for their restoration walking in truth and helping others to be restored.
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