The Beauty of a Contrite Heart

For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.  (Isaiah 57:15)

The Most High dwells with the most low. Do we realize what this says about our God? Here He is, exalted above all things, in need of nothing, eternal, unchangeable, all powerful … and yet He dwells with people who are sorry for their sins and feel their guilt.

That is what “contrite” means.  It means to feel your guilt and express remorse for it.  See the scene:  Here is the God against whom we have sinned with our thoughts, our words, our deeds.  Indeed, we are, as the Payer Book says, “miserable offenders”.  And this offended God draws near to the one whose spirit is crushed with guilt, not to destroy, but to revive.  He comes to bring life again to ones dead in their trespasses and sins. This One, who lives forever and whose very name is holy, seeks out the wounded transgressor with a heart to restore.

Isaiah, who wrote these words by the direction of the Holy Spirit seven hundred years before Jesus, was teeing up the Gospel.  For in Jesus the Holy God actually came to dwell among sinners. Isaiah’s words became historical reality. Here Jesus, the One who inhabits Eternity, the “Darling of Heaven”, has made Himself nothing that He might be found among sinners. And, more, He came proactively -  to seek them out.  He came looking for the contrite ones. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Luke 19:10; Mark 2:17). You and I would never think up such a God.  No other faith system ever has. And yet, when the sorry sinner hears of Jesus, their spirit resonates with new life, and something within says, “Yes! Finally! Here is my salvation!”

Dear one, the Lord resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). A contrite spirit is a beautiful thing.  It is attractive to God.  It is a magnet to grace. Don’t ever hesitate to get low, for Jesus is always there looking for sinners. It is not pretended righteousness that grabs God’s heart, but sorrow for sin.

… a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalm 51:17