when

Several years ago a cartoon appeared in the Saturday Review of Literature in which little George Washington was standing with an ax in his hand. Before him, lying on the ground was the famous cherry tree. He had already made his smug admission that he had done it—after all, he "...cannot tell a lie." But his father was standing there, exasperated, saying, "All right, so you admit it! You always admit it! The question is, when are you going to stop doing it."

The growing problem facing many pastors today is not how to get people to own up to sin, although that still remains a task; but rather how to get them to stop from returning to sin. Lost in the shuffle of religious terms is the true meaning of repentance—a change of mind, a turning from one direction to another.

Most people do not like to dwell on the horrors of the crucifixion. 

It is too bloody, too horrible. 

But the crucifixion is the perfect picture of just how ugly sin is. 

If anything can help us turn from our sin, it should be a clear and perfect view of the horror of sin and its cost. 

It should be the cross and all of its ugliness.