Seven Sacrifices to Joy

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to join me for a few words, or more, from my heart to yours! We are finally on the fourth sacrifice in the Seven Sacrifices to Joy, a contrite heart. Oh, there is beauty in Godly sorrow! Grab your coffee and your Red Strand of Faith and let’s go ties some more knots in this series.

Have you ever let some words come flying out of your mouth in a burst of anger and then immediately, as soon as they left your tongue, been sorry? Or hit someone and only after you did, were you wishing you could scamper into a hole like a lizard? Or how about those messages from the pulpit where you just know the Pastor is looking right at you because he was at your house the day before sorting through your “dirty laundry” and saw your sin? Oh how beautiful are the quiet crashes of conviction against the soul that bring a contrite heart. A contrite heart is a requirement for change!

Now we want to be careful and not confuse contrite with depressed! To avoid that crash, let’s check out a couple of definitions for contrite.

Hmmm, I just discovered something interesting: contrite is only in the Old Testament! The first occurrence is in Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”

Wow, the word translates to “daka,” pronounced daw-kaw, and means “to crumble; to dash into pieces or crush.”

That’s a lot of sorrow but look at the promise: The Lord is near … to pick up the pieces! I don’t know about you, but there have been many times where I’ve felt that my world was in pieces and mostly because I had made such a mess of it, but EVERY single time, He was there to turn tragedy into triumph, trash into a testimony for He knew in my heart I was broken and sorrowful.

I hear another question echoing in the hallways of my heart: what about those that have sinned against us and don’t have a “contrite” heart for hurting us? I guess the simplistic answer to such a difficult but honest question is to truly have a contrite heart means we experience remorse over sin … not just our own, but those committed against us! In other words, our heart will break for what breaks His!

A contrite heart experiences repentance and true repentance is seen by a turning away from that which we are repenting from. Let’s sit here for just a minute… without a gavel in our hands!

There are two types of repentance that exist: genuine repentance and false repentance. Genuine repentance occurs when we come clean before God and confess sin out of a true sense of remorse at having offended God.

False repentance occurs when an individual says, "I am sorry" because someone else discovers him in sin and points it out. The apology does not bring change to the one who is falsely repenting, but that’s not for us to decide!

God wants us to be honest with Him, contrite before Him and not wait until we are discovered by others to repent.

A contrite heart will keep us in our own lane and in our own car so we don’t cause emotional wrecks in others’ lives! A contrite heart forgives without being asked for forgiveness!

One of the greatest prayers we could pray for ourselves and those who have hurt us is to have a contrite heart, which is a humble heart that truly desires to walk with God and be what He wants.

A “contrite heart” is considered a sacrifice because it sets aside selfish desires and wants and waits for God's will.

Oh, to offer up a contrite heart, to walk in this journey with the broken in a way that makes Him smile …

Join me tomorrow for the fifth sacrifice in this series!

Evind