There is a kind of brokenness we all try to avoid—the ache of knowing we have failed God yet again, the sting of conviction that cuts deeper than any human criticism. Psalm 51:17 shows us that this very place, where pride crumbles and excuses die, is where God leans in closest. David discovered that what God desires most is not polished performance or empty ritual, but a heart honestly shattered over sin and turned fully back to Him.

The Sacrifice God Will Never Reject

David had access to altars, priests, and animal sacrifices—but he knew none of that could touch the real issue: his heart. So he cried out, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). “Broken” here is not theatrical emotion, but a heart crushed under the weight of its own rebellion and brought low before a holy God. That is the one sacrifice God never turns away. Where we would expect rejection, He gives welcome; where we anticipate wrath, He offers mercy to the genuinely repentant.

This is consistent with God’s own description of where He loves to dwell: “For this is what the high and exalted One says—He who lives forever, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with the contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). The God who sits above the universe also stoops down to the one who sits in the ashes of regret. If you feel crushed today by your failures, you are not disqualified—you are exactly where God promises to revive.

Letting Go of Image, Choosing Honest Repentance

Our flesh wants to bargain with God: “Look at what I’m doing for You. Look how I’ve improved. Look how I’m not as bad as others.” But that mindset keeps us hiding behind religious masks instead of stepping into the light. James writes, “But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (James 4:6). God does not negotiate with pride; He pours grace on humility. Honest, specific confession is not losing—it’s dropping our defenses so His mercy can finally reach us.

Jesus put skin on Psalm 51 in His story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The religious man bragged in prayer, but “the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified” (Luke 18:13–14a). God justified the man with the broken and contrite heart. This is still His promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Real repentance is not morbid self-hatred; it is faith-filled honesty that runs to the cross.

From Crushed to Changed

God does not delight in your brokenness as an end; He delights in it as a doorway to transformation. “For godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Worldly sorrow stays stuck in shame and self-pity. Godly sorrow takes you by the hand, leads you to Christ’s wounds, and leaves you cleansed, humbled, and different. The same God who breaks your pride binds up your heart and makes you new.

From that place, your whole life becomes worship. Paul urges us, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1). The broken and contrite heart is where this starts; the surrendered, obedient life is where it continues. God promises, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26a). Today, come with nothing but your need. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Your broken heart, placed in His hands, is the beginning of a holy, joyful surrender.

Lord, thank You that You do not despise a broken and contrite heart. Help me today to bring You honest repentance and to walk in the obedience and surrender that flows from Your mercy.

The contemporary world is a result of radical changes down the generations amounting to revolution: the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the communications revolution, the philosophical revolution and the social revolution. Are we going to accept the belief that the Bible must be interpreted anew in the light of these developments? Are we going to allow ourselves to accept the doctrine that the prophets and apostles were mistaken about God? Are we going to allow society to tell us that the Bible is outmoded and largely irrelevant and must therefore be reassessed in the light of modern advancements? Has God changed? Are we going to accept it? Is there a change in the purpose of God? Have the changes in human society startled or shocked God? Must we, in order to remain intellectually respectable and have good standing with these who doubt the Word, humbly say, "Well, I do not believe in miracles"? Or have we got enough of our Protestant protest and courage to stand up and say, "I believe in miracles whenever God Almighty wants to perform them. I believe that whenever God wants to do anything that is out of the ordinary and contrary to or at least above the common processes of nature, He is able to do it. I believe the miracles of Jesus Christ were real miracles. I believe the miracles of the Old Testament were real miracles." Are we going to allow ourselves to be brainwashed along with all the rest? Or are we going to dare to stand and protest and be known over the country as being Protestant indeed? We would be people who refuse to adjust but who make the world adjust to us. When you adjust, you are dead. The same is true if a church adjusts to these ideas. If you adjust, you are done. But if you dare to stand, the world will adjust to you. I can promise you that. Not all will adjust to you, but at least some will.

And David said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this is worthy of death, . . . because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man! - 2 Samuel 12:5-7

If a man’s own sin is held up before him a little disguised, he says, " How ugly it is! " And if only for a moment he can be persuaded that it is not his own conduct, but somebody else’s, that he is judging, the instinctive condemnation comes. We have got two sets of names for vices: one set which rather mitigates and excuses them, and another set which puts them in their real hideousness. We keep the palliative set for home consumption, and liberally distribute the plain-spoken, ugly set amongst the vices and faults of our friends.

The same thing which I call in myself prudence, I call in you meanness. The same thing which you call in yourself generous living, you call in your friend filthy sensualism. That which, to the doer of it, is only righteous indignation, to the onlooker is passionate anger. That which, in the practiser of it, is no more than a due regard for the interests of his own family and himself in the future, is, to the envious lookers-on, shabbiness and meanness in money matters. That which, to the liar, is only prudent diplomatic reticence, to the listener is falsehood. That which, in the man that judges his own conduct, is but "a choleric word," is, in his friend, when he judges him, " flat blasphemy."

And so we go all round the circle, and condemn our own vices, when we see them in other people. So the King who had never thought, when he stole away Uriah’s one ewe lamb, and did him to death by traitorous commands, setting him in the front of the battle, that he was wanting in compassion, blazes up at once, and righteously sentences the other " man" to death, "because he had no pity." He had never thought of himself or of his crime as cruel, as mean, as selfish, as heartless. But when he sees a partially disguised picture of it, he knows it for the devil’s child that it is.

"Oh! wad some power the gifdie gie us

lo see oursels as ithers see us;

It wad frae many an error free us ":

and so it would, to see ourselves as we see others. We judge our brother and ourselves by two different standards.

For godliness, we need to cultivate the habit of discrimination between good and evil, right and wrong, because the world is full of illusions, and we are very blind. And we need to cultivate the habit of self-control, and rigid repression of passions, and lusts, and desires, and tastes, and inclinations before His calm and sovereign will, because the world is full of fire, and our hearts and natures are tinder. And we need to cultivate the habit of patience in all its three senses of endurance in sorrow, of persistence in service, and of hope of the future, because the more a man cultivates that habit, the larger will be his stock of proofs of the loving-kindness and goodness of his God, and the easier and more blessed it will be for him to live in continual communion with Him. There is no way by which your religion can become deep, all-pervasive, practical, sovereign in your lives, but the old road of effort and of prayer. " Exercise thyself," as a gymnast does in the arena; - exercise thyself unto godliness, - and do not fancy that the Christian life comes as a matter of course on the back of some one initial act of a long-forgotten faith in Jesus Christ.