The only solution to dealing with your sin — whether for the first time ever or the hundredth time today — is to stop blaming others, stop running from a recognition of your guilt, and run to Jesus Christ who knows how to clean up the tangled mess of sin’s consequences in your life.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s true. You have seen someone trying to clean up their own mess before, and that this just ends up making things worse as long as they continue doing more of whatever caused the mess in the first place. If it is the Cat in the Hat’s “spot killing” war on the pink cake stain that started in the bathtub but ends up covering the snow in the front yard, it can be comical. If it’s Macbeth seeking in vain to solidify the kingship he obtained through murder, by committing many more murders, it is tragic.

But have you noticed the same trend in your own decisions? Or, for that matter, in humanity everywhere?

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