[Mat 15:13-14 NLT] Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch."
Jesus told his disciples to “ignore” the blind spiritual leaders of His day. To ignore means to withdraw attention from or disassociate with. When we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit of Christ within us, we have a growing discernment of good and evil; spiritual enlightenment and blindness. We can see more and more clearly the direction of a person’s life---whether they are headed toward a “ditch” or toward a more heavenly existence. And when we see that they are just not getting it about Love and Truth and integrity, humility, servant-heartedness, and responsibility, etc. we know that it is best to ignore them; disassociate from them. We do this with Love toward them. We do not hold anything against them---Jesus Loves them, just as He loved those blind Pharisees. He died for them too. But if we associate with them, to whatever degree we associate with them, we will be allowing ourselves to be pulled toward the “ditch” that Jesus referred to. Some people are just not yet capable of hearing the words of Truth that would set them free. Judas is an example of this. He was with Jesus; saw the miracles, heard the teachings, walked and ate with Him. But he did not “get it”. And Jesus accepted it. He was not expending wasted energy on trying to persuade Judas, collaring him and pressing in deeply with coercive teaching methods, trying to get Judas to awaken. Mysteriously, He told Judas to “do quickly” what Satan had put in his heart to do---betray Him. And our Heavenly Father used the blind betrayal of Judas, inspired by Satan, to salvage the faithful from the grip that Satan had upon them. A hellacious backfire for the old serpent! And an earth-shaking, heavenly victory for humankind!
And there is this very practical and useful principle that we can derive from this: Dissociate from the militantly spiritually blind folks---those who distort or ignore the Truth over and over again. Don’t “cast your pearls before the swine”, as Jesus said. Get yourself free from needing them to “get it”. But you must never stop loving them; Jesus does not allow that, and we do not want what He does not allow. Christ’s Love in us for those whom we have come to “ignore” is the very evidence of our freedom from the spirit of blindness in them. Some of these blind ones may be in your family—a spouse, parent or adult child. These are the most difficult to lovingly dissociate from. But if we do not, the spirit that is in them will take precedence over the Spirit of Christ in us, and we will dragged toward the ditch where we cannot benefit from the blessings that Christ died and lives for us to receive. It would be as if Jesus were sitting in a dark cave somewhere pining over His unrequited love for Judas and ignoring the mission of the Cross, and the “joy that was set before Him” [Heb. 12:2].
