Booklet, adapted from Advanced Study No. 2: The Ways of the Heart

The Whole-Hearted Christian

Frank Allnutt

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Part 6: The Broken and Contrite-Hearted Christian

God allows us to go through one or more varieties of halfheartedness so that we might come to experience a broken and contrite heart. Understand that brokenness alone, caused by trauma, loss and suffering, does not necessarily lead to contriteness. Indeed, some who are broken sink to the depths of despair and fall short of contriteness. But here we are concerned with the Broken and Contrite-Hearted Christian who has a “resolute heart to remain true to the Lord” (Acts 11:23). When a believer’s heart arrives at this condition, he is ready to take the first step toward wholeheartedness:

1. He has experienced the insufficiency of self-sufficiency.

He has exhausted self’s resources in vain effort to overcome sin in his life and to live the Christian life. It is sometimes said that this believer has “come to the end of self.” His self-pride has given way to humility in view of who he was (a sinner) and who he is (a saint), and who God is. He is compelled by love and humility to be obedient to God’s will.

2. He accepts personal responsibility for his sins.

We sometimes hear it said that, “The Devil made me do it,” “I heard voices telling me to do it,” “I had to choose the lesser of two evils,” and, “I didn’t do it; it was indwelling sin in my body.” Such statements reflect fleshliness and a misunderstanding of biblical doctrine. The Broken and Contrite-Hearted Christian, however, makes no such excuses and does not attempt to transfer the blame for sin in his life to someone or something else. He acknowledges to himself and confesses to God that he alone is responsible for his sins.

3. He experiences contrition.

The Broken and Contrite-Hearted Christian is truly humbled and remorseful over his sins, and hungers for experiencing the victory over sin that came to him at the time of his salvation.

David’s kind of brokenness was broken self-will or a “broken spirit.” It occurs at that time in life when a person experiences and acknowledges the insufficiency of self-effort and the self-deception that comes from prideful self-will. Contriteness of heart is God’s desired result of brokenness. It is characteristic of a believer who has discovered that the road to self-sufficiency leads to a dead-end, and who is humbled by his total dependence on God. He is portrayed in Scripture as being overcome by the guilt and remorse of sinfulness in his life, and is sincere about repentance. He recognizes his need for conditional cleansing, healing, and renewal; seeks a return to fellowship with God; and desires to totally yield to the will of God. This believer has begun to have a change of heart.

4. He opens his heart to the truth.

He seeks to learn and experience truth, freedom, and righteousness in Christ.

5. He desires a pure heart—

to be conditionally cleansed and functionally healed of sin-debt: sinful thoughts, painful and bitter memories, fleshly motives, feelings of emptiness, guilt, shame, lustful desires, and so on.

6. He seeks to experientially know Christ as life.

This believer has come to a place in life where his love and need for God compel him to place Christ at the center of his life, so that he will experientially know Christ as life. David wrote that, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17). This believer is ready to experience the fellowship of Jesus. He desires to walk in the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit, and to be conformed to the functional likeness of Christ.

7. He is ready to surrender self-will for God’s will.

This believer’s self-will has been broken—crushed, shattered, and pulverized. Having experienced the humiliation of fleshly bankruptcy, his heart is prepared to totally surrender self-will, and he humbly seeks to know and to do God’s will.

8. He is on the path to learn what Jesus learned from suffering:

“He [Jesus] learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

Paul writes of the broken and contrite heart in his second letter to the Corinthians: “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God.... For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret...” (2 Corinthians 7:9, 10a).

God wants all of His children to experience a change of heart. The process begins when we humbly surrender our broken and contrite heart to God out of faith, hope, and love for Him, and begin to actually walk in Christ and depend wholly on His sufficiency.