How America Lost Itself

The tragedy of Judah is the tragedy of people today. That is why this book of Jeremiah, though written thousands of years ago, is still as relevant and up-to-date and pertinent to our day as it was when first written. The tragedy is that when people forsake God they lose the sense of their own worth. This is what always happens. When someone starts turning from God he also loses himself. That is the inevitable tragedy which occurs in any life. When these people turned from the living fountain of God they became like animals, Jeremiah said. They began to act like animals and to think of themselves in that way. They began to act brutishly. They began to dislike and hate themselves. This is always the consequence of a heart which rejects or turns from the living God. When you lose God, you no longer can love yourself. And if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love your neighbor. That reflects the wisdom of the great commandment Jesus gave us: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you have no sense of who you are as a person, then you will not look at any one else as a person, either. So the tragedy of this nation was that it had begun to lose its sense of God, and thus had begun to lose its sense of self.

--Ray C. Stedman, My Struggle with God