Jesus Represents Us and We Represent Jesus

I recently read a post from Mark Altrogge about how Jesus represents us in heaven as "The perfect, spotless, Lamb of God pleads his own blood and righteousness on our behalf at the Father’s right hand." Then he goes on to say, "And since he chose us, he will empower us and pour out his Spirit on us mightily, change our character, give us gifts, produce fruit, give us power and victory over sin – in other words, make us like himself – that we might represent him and his glory to the world."

I thought about that after reading it, think how Jesus represents us. What came to mind was what the Apostle John wrote in his first epistle, 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 (1 John 2:1-2). An advocate can be defined as a someone who takes a stand on behalf of someone else. In Jesus' case, when we sin, Jesus is our defense attorney when we, as Christians, sin. So Mark was correct in saying that Jesus does represent us in heaven.

The Bible also tells us that we represent Christ as we live out the gospel here in our time of exile. The Apostle Paul wrote:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

We are ambassadors for Christ not only telling people about Jesus, but living out the gospel. As Mark said in his closing statement, "So whatever you do today, whether you post on Facebook, go to lunch with co-workers, or take your kids to the playground, remember you represent Jesus! So pray for the power of the Spirit to do that in a way that pleases him."