By: Rigoberto Gomez Lopez
A CONTRETE AND HUMBLED HEART WILL NOT DESPIS GOD, IT DOES NOT REJECT HIM (Psalm 51:17)
What does a contrite and humiliated heart mean? What is a contrite heart?
The word contrite, according to the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE), means that you feel contrition, feel sadness or melancholy; that is to say, it is someone who feels repentance in his heart for acting in a way in which he shows himself to be against or disagrees with the will of God and at the same time has the purpose of never proceeding in the same way before God.
Contrite biblical meaning (A contrite and humbled heart)
The word contrite comes from the Hebrew daká whose meaning is collapsed, broken, cousin root of dak which is repentance; In addition, the word humiliated comes from the Hebrew shabár, which means fractured, damaged, broken and denotes a total recognition of the inability to do something for oneself.
What does contrite mean?
A CONTRETE AND HUMBLED HEART, PSALM 51:17
A contrite and humbled heart before God, verse:
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a contrite and humbled heart you will not despise, O God” (Psalm 51:17).
This Psalm expresses David’s repentance upon being admonished by the prophet Nathan after sinning with Bathsheba. David’s words when the prophet declared his sin were “… I have sinned against the Lord…” (2 Samuel 12:13), that is, there was an immediate recognition of his transgression. David had a contrite and humbled heart because of the recognition of his sin.
It is important to remember that Saul did the opposite to David, because when the prophet Samuel came to tell him about disobedience to God, Saul’s response was “… Rather I have obeyed the voice of the Lord…” (1 Samuel 15:20) and in verse 24 he tries to justify himself by saying “…I feared the people and consented to their voice…”, to such an extent that after justifying himself he asked for forgiveness. This is the complete opposite of a contrite and humiliated heart.
When we break, we leave before God a contrite and humiliated heart
These two stories make us reflect on how necessary it is to recognize our sin. Saul was discarded and David was forgiven, but in the midst of recognizing him his spirit broke. The word broken comes from the Hebrew shabar which means to break, break, destroy, tear apart, crush, crush; In other words, David’s spirit broke, he broke before God seeking forgiveness, and when he broke he left bare before God a contrite and humiliated heart seeking God’s mercy.
A contrite and humbled heart before God
When we have a heart that is contrite and humiliated, we feel sadness, regret, pain for having failed God. In turn, this feeling causes our soul to humble itself before God with a deep cry and a cry of genuine repentance. Could our God despise that plea? The psalmist affirms that a “…contrite and humble heart, you will not despise, O God” (Psalm 51:17)
When we talk about the heart we refer to our interior, which sometimes becomes hard with pride and self-sufficiency; but a contrite and humiliated heart shows the understanding that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes and have an attitude of wanting to change and that we need God and his mercy.
A Broken Spirit, A Contrite and Humbled Heart
Broken comes from a Hebrew word that means broken. The word contrite comes from another Hebrew word whose meaning is to crush. Heart, in Hebrew, is the inner man, mind or will. Based on these meanings we could say, about a contrite and humiliated heart, the following:
A broken spirit, a contrite and humiliated heart, is when our inner man or will has been broken, therefore, we do not do what we want but what God wants us to do. We no longer do things our way but on the terms that God wants us to do, that is, we have recognized that we depend on God, we no longer feel that we depend on ourselves, pride has been put aside and we have given ourselves bye bye. This is having a contrite and humbled heart.
A CONTRETE AND HUMBLE HEART CONFESSES BEFORE GOD
In Psalm 32:1 we are told: “Blessed is he whose transgression has been forgiven, and his sin covered”, that is, we can receive forgiveness and our sin is covered; however, to get there it is necessary to confess before God our transgressions with a contrite and humiliated heart.
David said: “While I kept silent my bones grew old in my groaning all day. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my greenery became in dry summer (v 3-4), our life is not the same because when we have known God and we have given up, the hand of God worsens over us, we cannot feel joy, nothing could fill us, there is a void within us that only God can fill. In this case we need to approach God with a contrite and humiliated heart.
Confessing sin with a contrite and humbled heart
Because of the above, David said: “…I declared my sin to you and I did not hide my iniquity… and you forgave the wickedness of my sin.” (Psalm 32:5). It is necessary that in our prayer we be honest with God because he loves “…the truth in the intimate…” (Psalm 51:6).
That moment of brokenness, that moment in which we have a contrite and humiliated heart before God, is the intimate moment that we need with our God in which we can declare our sin and we will achieve God’s forgiveness.
David’s spirit was broken, a contrite and humiliated heart pushed him to confess the sin he had committed with Bathsheba. God wants us to be renewed within ourselves, we must confess our sin and turn away from evil in order to please our God and be a pleasing sacrifice before God.
SIN BRINGS CONSEQUENCES BUT A CONTRETE AND HUMBLIED HEART WILL NOT DESPIS GOD
David’s sin brought consequences. The judgment of God through the prophet Nathan did not stop, because the prophet told him that the sword would never depart from his house, evil would rise up on him from his own house and his son would die because of his sin (2 Samuel 12:10-14).
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Sometimes we may think that we can walk free from judgment, but David himself experienced the opposite. Despite everything, God raised David up again, gave him another son (Salamon) by the same woman Bathsheba to sit on his throne, but he had to go through a process. A contrite and humbled heart from David brought God’s mercy into his life.
The Lord does not reject a contrite and humiliated heart
We have to go through a process but not everything is finished, we must not give up. Job 14:7 says: “because if the tree is cut down, there is still hope of it; it will still sprout, and the renewals of it will not be lacking ”, sometimes we feel cut off without being so, but even if we were, there is still hope to sprout and to be renewed because a contrite and humiliated heart God does not despise it.
Job goes on to say: “If its root grows old in the earth, and its trunk is dead in the dust, when it perceives the water it will turn green, and it will make a crown like a new plant” (v 8-9). The man without God is cut off, but the man who drinks of the Holy Spirit of God can be renewed. So if we have failed God, let us never forget that a contrite and humiliated heart does not despise our God.
SACRIFICES OF GOD: A BROKEN SPIRIT AND A CONTRETE AND HUMBLE HEART.
David had the conditions to offer God many animal sacrifices for his sin, but David knew that a broken spirit and a contrite and humiliated heart were better for God and, therefore, he offered it to God imploring His forgiveness for sin task.
God dwells in height, holiness and in a contrite and humiliated heart
Isaiah 57:15 says, “For thus says the High and Exalted, the One who dwells in eternity, and whose name is Holy: I dwell in height and holiness, and with the broken and lowly in spirit, to make live the spirit of the humble, and to quicken the hearts of the broken.”
Likewise the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14 illustrates this great truth about the sacrifice of a contrite and humbled heart. Both men entered the temple to pray. The Pharisee entered full of pride and boasting in his prayer of his religious works.
The humble tax collector felt contrite to such an extent that he did not want to raise his eyes to heaven, therefore he beat his chest saying: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus said that the tax collector went home justified “because whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
In conclusion, let us always remember that God’s sacrifices are a broken spirit, a contrite and humiliated heart, God will not despise it.