I'm not a sinner, you are!

In Chapter 9 of Charles Colson's book "Loving God" he looks into an important issue by asking "Whatever Became of Sin?"
He goes into great detail about why the word "repentance" is hardly used anymore. The biblical word for repentance is "metanoia" from the two Greek words Meta which means "change" and noia which means "mind". Richard Trent, the Archbishop of Dublin said it means "that mighty change in the mind, heart and life, wrought by the spirit of God."
While few sermons call for people to repent anymore, the call to repent is all through out the Old and New Testament. The very first words our of Jesus' mouth when He started His earthly ministry was "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." (Matthew 4:17) as well as one his last words to His disciples in Luke 24 when He said " and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (verses 46-47).
Colson rights concludes that, "Repentance is an inescapable consequence of regeneration, an indispensable part of the conversion process that takes place under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. But repentance is also a continuing state of mind. Without a continuing repentant attitude--a persistent desire to turn away from our own nature and seek God's nature--Christian growth is impossible. Loving God is impossible."
So it begs the question, if repentance is so important then why is it seldom preached and misunderstood.? Colson gives three reasons, which I agree with them all.
First he says, "The appeal of modern evangelism is not for repentance but for enlistment." Colson correctly states, "The Gospel must be the bad new of the conviction of sin before it can be the good news of redemption." Today's gospel presentation is watered down to the point that people who have no understanding of the call of Christ in their live and quite frankly don't have any desire too mistakenly believe they are true followers of Christ. It's Christianity without cost. German pastor during World War II, Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it "cheap grace" by stating "no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin...denial of the living word of God, in fact, a denial of the incarnation." In other words, a total lack of understanding what happen when the Holy Spirit changes a person's life at conversion.
Secondly, "often we are simply unwilling or unable to accept the reality of person sin and therefore to accept our need for repentance." As the title of this devotional states, "I'm not a sinner, you are!" It's easy to see Mickie Cohen's sin of murder and the like, but if we were to honestly look into the mirror, we to will see that our sin is equally offensive to a Holy God, after all, while most professors might grade on a curve, God doesn't. Sin is sin.
Lastly, Colson says "our culture has written sin our of existence." Sadly while this is true what is even more sad is it has almost been written out of the church. Don't preach on the sin of divorce because possibly half of your church has been divorce. Don't preach on the sin of homosexuality because that is hate speech and besides, that sin isn't any more sinful than gossiping. While that may be true, the consequences of homosexuality is far greater than gossiping and beside, we are not loving the homosexual when we don't lovingly and compassionately tell them the truth of their sinful life style. 
So here is the question for each of us, have you repented of your sin? Have to had a change of mind? How do you know? Well the first way is to look back on your life and see if you now have a desire to love and serve God and when God convict you of you sinful ways do you try to deal with it or ignore it.
Ask God today to give you an attitude of repentance and then you will "taste and see that the Lord is good."