(2) A right heart is a BROKEN and CONTRITE heart.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart— these, O God, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)
It is broken off from pride, self-conceit, and self-righteousness. Its former high thoughts of self are cracked, shattered, and shivered to atoms. It thinks itself guilty, unworthy, and corrupt.
Its former stubbornness, heaviness, and insensibility have thawed, disappeared, and passed away. It no longer thinks lightly of offending God.
It is tender, sensitive, and jealously fearful of running into sin.
“Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,” says the Lord.” (2 Kings 22:19)
It is humble, lowly, and self-abased, and sees in itself no good thing.
- C. Ryle: Old Paths, ‘The Heart’