Spiritual blindness is like blindness of intellect. Both are caused by a strong desire, usually to be right about a belief, but also to strongly desire something. The oft repeated ‘love is blind’ has the element of ‘I want this person’ causing blindness to their shortcomings. This is not always bad if a choice if overlooking or accepting faults is involved. However, spiritual blindness is never a good thing.
Jesus took three of His disciples up a high mountain where they glimpsed His glory and where He talked with Moses and Elijah. They didn’t get the significance of what they were seeing. When they descended, they saw a crowd around the other disciples. It was an argument about a boy brought to them for deliverance. He’d been tormented by demonic forces and the disciples could not help him. When they asked Jesus why, He told them they needed faith (Mark 9:19) and prayer (verse 29).
As they moved on, Jesus told them what was going to happen to Him:
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “’The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.’ But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him.” (Mark 9:30–32)
They didn’t get it. The words seem plain enough, but they were blind to what He was telling them. Right after that, Jesus caught them in a discussion and asked what they were talking about, “But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.” (Mark 9:34)
After Jesus responded to that notion, John raised another issue:
John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.” (Mark 9:38)
Jesus refuted that notion also. As I read this passage, He showed me the reason they could not understand His simple declaration in verse 31 about His coming death nor the significance of their experience on the mountain; they were blind because they were filled with their own ‘I-wants’ which blocked all else.
This context suggests that they could not cast out the demon because they failed to pray. I fail to pray when I’m filled with the idea that I can handle this myself — blind to my weaknesses. They also argued about who was the greatest. Pride makes me blind to how much I need Jesus.
They were not open to anyone else doing good in the name of Jesus because they considered themselves special, elite. Again, pride keeps me from seeing the value and function of the entire Body of Christ. Pride is behind prejudice and partiality.
All personal desires are dangerous to my spiritual life. They block me from seeing what God wants. Paul tells how he became the man of God that he was:
“For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” (Philippians 3:3–12)
Paul gave up all personal ambition. He denied confidence in any of it and emptied himself to serve the Lord and the Lord filled him with more and more Holy Spirit power. He turned from self, from the I-wants that would have distracted him, and the more he did that, the more God filled his empty places with the character and power of Jesus Christ.
APPLY: As I clean up my house, purging it of unwanted and unneeded stuff, I see more and more the freedom this gives to my heart. So it is with personal I-wants. Fame, popularity, worldly value systems of all kinds leave no room for Jesus to ‘put His hand in this glove’ and move me in ways I would not otherwise go. He says it this way: “He who saves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will save it.”
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