We must love our own soul. We must keep our own soul.
[Proverbs 19:8, 16]
Do you love yourselves? I came across an interesting column written by Pastor Kim Byung-kyu, who serves at Glory Church in Seattle. The title of the column caught my attention, and I decided to read it. The title was “Self-love is the foundation of love” (Internet). In the article, Pastor Kim says there are two aspects of healthy self-love: (1) passive self-love, which means being able to forgive and cover your own sins and shortcomings. “You need to experience forgiveness and acceptance yourself in order to forgive and cover others. You must experience the grace of forgiveness and the love of the gospel.” (2) active self-love, which means “a person who rejoices in their own strengths is able to praise and encourage others. One must know and rejoice in their strengths and feel happiness about their gifts.”* What do you think about this? Personally, I believe that while self-love is important, the foundation of love is love for God, not self-love. However, I do resonate with the point Pastor Kim makes about self-love being foundational. In other words, I believe that only when we love ourselves with God’s love can we truly love our neighbors. Also, just as God has forgiven us, when we sincerely forgive ourselves, we can forgive our neighbors as well. In particular, the statement “a person who rejoices in their own strengths is able to praise and encourage others” resonates with me. Perhaps the reason is that I have trouble seeing or rejoicing in my own strengths, and even when I do, I don’t feel joy in them. As a result, I believe I lack the ability to praise and encourage others. In short, it seems that I am not loving myself well with God’s love.
In today’s passage from Proverbs 19:8 and 16, the Bible speaks about those who love their soul and those who keep their soul. Today, I want to reflect on these two verses under the title “We must love our soul. We must keep our soul” and receive the lessons God wants to teach us.
First, we must love our own soul.
Let’s look at Proverbs 19:8: “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will find good.” Do you love yourselves? If your answer is “yes,” do you perhaps feel that loving yourself is somewhat selfish? I believe that when we say we love ourselves, we need to make some distinctions. First, as stated in 2 Timothy 3:2, in the last days, when times of distress come, “people will love themselves,” which is selfish love. Second, just as God loves me, I must also love myself with God’s love. We should not love ourselves with selfish love, but rather with God’s love. We must love ourselves, but as the verse in today’s passage says, we must love our soul. Therefore, we should experience the blessing of having our prayer answered as in 3 John 1:2: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” So, what should we do for our soul to prosper? In other words, what must we do to ensure that our soul prospers as we love it? As the passage from Proverbs 19:8 states, in order for our soul to prosper, we must gain wisdom.
What is "wisdom"?
Wisdom is the fear of God. When we obtain wisdom and fear God, what is the blessing that this brings to us? Let’s look at Proverbs 19:23:
"The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm."
The Bible tells us that fearing God not only leads to life but also allows us to live in satisfaction and protects us from harm. This is the blessing that God gives us when we obtain wisdom and fear Him. So, how can we gain wisdom? There are at least two things we can consider.
First, to obtain wisdom, we must meditate on God's Word day and night. Look at Psalm 1:2:
"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."
For several years, during our Wednesday prayer meetings, we have meditated on the book of Ecclesiastes, which is known as the "book of wisdom," and now we are meditating on Proverbs. The reason we meditate on wisdom books like Ecclesiastes and Proverbs is, of course, to gain wisdom, but also because, to obtain wisdom, we first need to receive discipline through God’s Word. Let’s look at Proverbs 19:20:
"Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future."
Clearly, the Bible commands us to listen to advice and accept instruction. The reason for this is that when we listen to advice and receive instruction, we will inevitably become wise. However, if we refuse to be disciplined, this is an act of despising our own soul. Let’s look at Proverbs 15:32:
"Whoever ignores instruction despises their own soul; but whoever heeds correction gains understanding."
If we think of this in reverse, it means that if we truly value (and love) our soul, we should enjoy receiving correction.
To gain wisdom, we must meditate on God’s Word day and night, and we must be willing to receive the correction that God gives through His Word. As we meditate on the wisdom books, the more we meditate, the more we realize how much we lack wisdom. I think this is a completely natural phenomenon. In other words, the more we meditate on God’s wisdom in His Word, the more we realize how lacking we are in wisdom and how foolish we are. Therefore, to gain wisdom, we must ask God for wisdom. Look at James 1:5-6 (the first part of the verse):
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting..."
We must thoroughly recognize our lack of wisdom, and with faith, we must ask God for wisdom without any doubt. When we do this, God will give us wisdom abundantly.
Finally, second, we must protect our own soul.
Look at today's passage, Proverbs 19:16:
"He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who despises his ways will die."
Here, the Bible speaks about keeping one's soul, but what does it mean to keep one's soul? To answer this question, we need to examine the word "soul" used in the passage. In the original Hebrew, "soul" can be interpreted as "heart." In fact, the word for "wisdom" in Proverbs 19:8 is translated as "heart" in the original Hebrew (Swanson). In other words, the Bible says, "He who obtains the heart loves his soul..."
However, in the latter part of verse 8, the Bible states, "He who keeps understanding will find good," which shows that the "heart" mentioned in the first part refers to wisdom—the wisdom of a heart that fears God. Therefore, the Bible says, "He who gains wisdom loves his soul, and he who keeps understanding will find good."
Then, in today's passage, Proverbs 19:16, the Bible talks about keeping one's soul, and here, the meaning of keeping one's soul can be interpreted as keeping one's heart.
Are you keeping your heart well?
Today, many people think that health is the most important thing and are striving to protect their health. Personally, I do not believe that health is the most important thing, but I do believe that, as stewards of the Lord, we have a responsibility to take good care of the body the Lord has given us. However, I believe that what Christians should prioritize more than maintaining physical health is the health of their hearts (souls). The reason for this is that the Bible in Proverbs 4:23 says:
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
Especially, we need to protect our hearts so that unbelief toward the Lord does not enter our hearts. The reason for this is that Satan constantly seeks to deceive and tempt us to fall away from our faith in Jesus. If we do not guard our hearts and fall into Satan's deception, we are not guarding our lives properly. Additionally, we need to protect our hearts to prevent them from becoming defiled (Titus 1:15). We need to guard our hearts so that they are not given over to impurity and lust (Romans 1:24).
We need to guard our hearts so that from them do not come "evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly" (Mark 7:21-22). So, how can we properly guard our hearts? Today's passage, Proverbs 19:16, teaches us two important lessons:
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To guard our hearts properly, we must keep God's commandments.
Look at the first part of Proverbs 19:16:
"He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul..."
What are the "commandments"? Look at 1 John 3:23:
"And this is His commandment: that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us."
In other words, to keep our soul, the commandment we need to keep is to believe in Jesus and love one another. In fact, Jesus said in John 6:29:
"The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent."
And Jesus also commanded:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27).
Keeping these two commandments is what it means to guard our soul. -
To guard our hearts properly, we must be careful with our behavior.
Look at the second part of Proverbs 19:16:
"But he who does not take heed to his ways will die."
This means that if a person does not take care to be cautious with their behavior, they will face destruction. This is a warning against the opposite of the message in the first part of verse 19 (Park Yun-sun).
In order to guard our souls, we need to make efforts to keep God's commandments—believing in Jesus and loving one another. If we do not keep these commandments, we will face destruction. The reason for this is that the commandment to believe in Jesus is the commandment that leads to eternal life, and if we do not keep this commandment, we cannot have eternal life and will therefore face destruction. Those who do not keep the commandment to believe in Jesus cannot keep the commandment to love one another.
I would like to conclude the meditation on the word. Last Tuesday, I read a post on the Facebook of one of the deacons from our church, which shared a story about a phrase that changed the life of football player Park Ji-sung (from the internet). To summarize the content briefly, the phrase that changed Park Ji-sung’s life was something Coach Hiddink said to him, and the translator told Park Ji-sung: “Park Ji-sung has excellent mental strength.” Upon hearing that phrase, Park Ji-sung says his heart started pounding and he felt energized. The reason was that those words pierced deeply into his heart. He then said: “If I had not met Coach Hiddink, I would not be the person I am today. This ‘me’ does not mean that I became a famous star or that I became financially well-off enough to buy my parents a 45-pyong (approximately 1500 square feet) apartment. What it means is that I have become a ‘me’ who loves myself more than I did before. That single phrase, which lasted less than a minute, changed the rest of my life.”
When I read this last part, I was deeply moved by the fact that Park Ji-sung, who once played for the Korean national football team, now loves himself more than he did before. If a single phrase from Coach Hiddink helped him love himself more, how much more should we think about the fact that God the Father loved us so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross? This thought made me reflect on how we should love ourselves with God's love.
Brothers and sisters, we must love ourselves with God's love. In other words, just as God loves us, we should also love ourselves. Loving ourselves means loving our own soul (heart) and guarding it. To do this, we need heavenly wisdom. We must ask God for wisdom. And with God's wisdom, we must keep His commandments. In doing so, we must also be cautious with our actions. I pray that God will protect both your soul and mine.