In your prayer time, do you practice to plead the case of another? Not hyperventilating with many words, but advocating their cause before the Lord?

Proverbs 23:10-11, “Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.” Another way to see someone who pleads a cause is seen in the word “advocate”. Not “litagate” but “advocate”. The idea of an advocate, as someone who pleads a cause, in Hebrew is a combination of two words, the first is “to grapple with” and the second is to “contend for a cause”. There is wrestling involved. That doesn’t mean to go and pick a fight in hopes to beat someone in battle. That’s not what God has in mind i don’t think. The spirit of the word “advocate” is different than to “litigate” in the sense that to “litigate” means to argue within judicial process implying one person is right and the other is wrong. By no means am i saying we go before the Lord as the one who is right and God is wrong. Never! But what we are doing is more as intercession, making needs known, and talking to God about why we think our petition before Him is a good idea. Jesus was interceding as an advocate in John 17, but arguing with God is not what we do when we advocate.

In 1 John 2:1, John uses the word advocate in the sense of someone who comforts in addition to pleading the cause of another. To intercede is a bit more aggressive, but it is still a form of advocation. The Greek word in English for “advocate” is in the sense of, “a person called in to help, summoned to give assistance,” which gives us the of someone as a “helper in court.” Even though there is no clear scriptural reference to our advocating in a literal court, the idea still has, more or less, legal tones. It would seem that being an advocate for another is part of what Paul was writing about in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

In Job 16:1-2, when the writer said, “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.”, the word “comforters”, in Hebrew, is used in the sense of someone who would intercede and plead my cause before the Lord, which obviously the friends of Job were far more negative litigators sitting at a prosecutors bench, than positive advocators.

i have noted of myself, during my prayer time, that i do not want to get stuck in rote repetitiveness, “bless them Lord”, “help us God”, “heal them Lord”, over and over for lack of words, kind of like someone using those phrases as filler until they think of something else to say. i’m not saying those are not good things to pray, because they are. What i am saying is that i would like to be a better advocate, pleading the cause of others more effectively, using words which make a difference.

When God told Abraham in Genesis 15:1 that He was his shield, the word shield is used in the sense of a protector, an advocate who contends for the cause of another. In Deuteronomy 33:29, the Lord is declared as the “shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph.” He is the personification of a shield and sword for us, a shield as one who intercedes to help, and as a sword dividing truth from fiction, defining the victory. In the process of sinning, i believe our senses offer to reason with us about the delicate deliciousness of our desire, like a manipulative employee would influence the boss in order for them to get what they want. That is manipulating, not advocating.

Jesus was and is an advocate for sinners before God, and i would like to be better at advocating for those who are locked in a dark prison of their own making, and even for those who are, by consent, in bed with curses they have agreed with, yet wonder why life is not better than it is. In 1 John 2:1-2, the apostle writes, “…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.” He is our defender and legal counsel, and is sufficient for any who would be in need of a helper and shield. This is NOT universalism, which says He died for everyone, repentant or not, nor is it just “limited atonement”, meaning He only died for an elite, select few. As our advocate He is also our propitiation, meaning by His blood on Calvary, He satisfied God’s righteous requirement of justice. “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus is our propitiator, our Defender from the dead, at the right hand of the Father where He intercedes for us before the heavenly throne. Therefore, as our advocate, we are secure in that intercession, in that justification, in that satisfaction.

Now, i want it to be recognized that i laid out some defining ideas there for the sole purpose that we, all too often, misconstrue the heart of the Lord because we haven’t taken the time to study and understand what God means when He uses words, like “defender”, “advocate”, “intercessor”, etc. So many think being an advocate and intercessor somehow means they scream and plead with God, rant and rave with many tears, pounding the table and hold God’s word up to the Lord in trembling passion as if God is half-blind and is a little dim to understand your situation. Never. Not at all. All that yelling and pounding is absolutely not necessary for God to hear us. Mind you, i didn’t say don’t be passionate, i’m just saying all the emotional hot atmosphere and endless string of words isn’t necessary to see ourselves as advocating for others.

Let us study Bible characters to get a view of what it is to be an advocate. Study how they spoke, when they spoke, and what they said as a model. Not some person in a movie to model ourselves after. Moses was an advocate in Exodus 23, Queen Esther advocated in the book of Esther, Nehemiah in Nehemiah 1 & 2, Paul in Philemon, and of course above all, Jesus as our chief example.

If Jesus is your advocate, you also, yes YOU, have been empowered to advocate for those around you. If we know God hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we have asked of him. i think of being an advocate as one who petitions, who appeals to the Highest authority on behalf of another with respect to a particular cause. We can make better use of our prayer time. God will give us words to make a difference if we’re willing to extend ourselves, consistently, on behalf of others. i guarantee it.

What do you think?