If you and I have a broken and contrite heart, it means that frivolity and trifling have gone from us. There are some who are always trifling with spiritual things, but he who gets a broken heart has done with that sort of spirit. A broken heart is serious and solemn and in earnest.

A broken heart never tries to play any tricks with God and never shuffles texts as though even Scripture itself were meant only to be an opportunity for testing our wit. A broken spirit is tender, serious, weighed down with solemn considerations.

Indulge that spirit now, be solemn before God, grasp eternal things, let slip these shadows; what are they worth? But set set you your soul on things divine and everlasting. Pursue that vein of thought, and so bring God a broken and contrite spirit.

Further, a broken spirit is one out of which hypocrisy has gone. The vessel, whole and sealed up, may contain the most precious essence of roses, or it may contain the foulest filth; I know not what is in it. But break it and you will soon see.

There is no hypocrisy about a broken heart. O brethren and sisters, be before men what you are before God! Seem to be what you really are. Make no pretences. I am afraid that we are all hypocrites in a measure.

We both pray and preach above our own actual experience full often, and we perhaps think that we have more faith than we actually have, and the more love than we have ever known. The Lord make us to have a broken heart that is revealed by being broken! 

Charles Spurgeon

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End Notes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, At the Master’s Feet [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], July 6.

See also:

JESUS SAVES THE UNGODLY

HIS LOVE IS GREATER!

YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN MANY SPARROWS