Our Advocate With God

This week in my Good Morning Girls Bible Study, the children of Israel fell headfirst into the sin of idolatry while Moses was up on the mountain communing with God.

The people of Israel had just been miraculously delivered, rescued, and fed by God.

Aaron and his sons had just been consecrated to God and set apart as God's High Priests.

But as it can be with all of us as humans, their memories were very short!

The people started getting impatient wondering what has taken Moses so long. They wonder if he is even still alive. They begin to question the existance of the true God and demand instead a god they can see with their own eyes.

Aaron, the man supposedly set apart as the only one consecrated to enter into the holiest part of God's Tabernacle, becomes nothing more than a weak people-pleaser at the demands of the mob.

Bull worship was common religious practice in the land of Egypt from which the people had just been delivered. Obviously they had been influenced by this practice and still held it in their hearts, because the "god" Aaron fashioned from gold was a calf.

Of course we know both God and Moses were VERY angry! God was ready to wipe the whole nation of Israel out at this time because of this great sin. Moses through down the tablets of stone God had written upon with His own hand and broke them. He destroyed the calf, ground it to powder, put it in the water and made the people drink it (yuck!). This was no laughing matter.

But Moses, as a good leader, comes before the Lord and begs Him not to destroy the people. He pleads with Him to remember the covenants He made with their fathers. He insists that if God destroys the nation of Israel, that he himself should be destroyed with them.

Moses was acting as the children of Israel's advocate. An advocate is sort of like a lawyer who stands before the judge on someone else's behalf and pleads their case for them. Even the vilest and gulitiest of criminals has someone who will be on their side and will seek mercy and pardon on their behalf.

I am so thankful that Jesus is my advocate with God!!

Everyone makes mistakes. And yes even seasoned Christians can become weak when they do not keep their relationship with God fresh in their hearts, and can stumble into sin.

Yes, sadly it happens. It does not have to happen, but often it does.

Now let me pause here a moment. I do NOT believe the whole "Even Christians sin daily" thing as this is NOT found anywhere in Scripture! Mistakes and willful sin are two different things many people get confused. God is able to keep us from sin IF we abide in Him and keep our relationship with Him strong. But it is when we become forgetful, impatient, and weak like Aaron and the people of Israel that we can slip back into our old ways.

A holy God cannot look upon sin, and sin brings only death and destruction. So then what is the guilty party to do??

1 John 2:1 gives us hope for these situations:

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.

Jesus is our advocate, our lawyer, the one who can stand before the Holy God on our behalf and plead our case. If we only come to Him in sincerity and heartfelt repentance, He will go to the Father and seek pardon for us. He covers our sin and guilt with His blood then, and it is cast as far as the east is from the west!

I am truly thankful for Jesus taking my punishment and being willing to plead my case before Almighty God. I am thankful for God's unmerited grace and mercy that He is willing to extend to all if they will only accept the cleansing blood of Jesus and let it wash their souls clean!

Let us not be like the children of Israel and Aaron who so soon forgot their covenant with God. Let us find ways to remind ourselves to daily nourish our relationship with God. Let us seek to rid our hearts of our old ways and our old worldviews so that we are less and less tempted to fall back into them!

I pray you have accepted Christ as your own personal Savior and that He is your advocate today!

How do you keep your relationship with God strong? Share in the comments below!!!

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