July 6

"If any man sin."—I John 2:1. "If we keep His commandments."—I John 2:3.

HERE is the "If" of rich encouragement and good cheer. If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I am always offending, always coming short, always disappointing the tender and holy heart of God. But day by day my Intercessor makes no pause. He pleads His own obedience to the law I break so often and so sadly. His blood, His love, His entreaty, He Himself, speak for me with a perseverance which never falters and with a power which never fails. Thus is my desperate case relieved, and all my necessity met.

But here again is the "If" of solemn admonition and obligation. Hereby know we that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. Only if my heart loves His perfect and spiritual and searching law, only if my feet run with alacrity the way He has marked out for me, have I any assurance that He is mine and I am His. I may stumble twenty times a day; I may fail to realise my own ideals and hopes; but is there in my soul the delight, steadfast and true, in the injunctions He has laid down for me and the path He has determined? Not otherwise have I any certainty that I stand among His sons and daughters.

My consolation and my responsibility go hand in hand. I have no right to assume that Jesus is my Paraclete in the heavens unless I am doing His will on the earth. Suppose that I keep my envy when I kneel and pray, or my vaulting ambition, or my luxuriousness, or my desire for revenge, I am disobeying His commandment and I cannot have His advocacy.