Picture a Northwest Airlines flight flying above the clouds from New York to LA. You're the pilot.
Things are going well, the skies are clear, so you put it on autopilot. The rub comes when, after awhile, you start to get the sneaking suspicion that the plane is losing altitude. You're working on your dinner though, so you don't think much of it. When you look out the window, things look mostly good. But wait, are those clouds below you closer than they should be? Na, they couldn't be. All of a sudden, a loud alarm goes off. "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP". As you look at the altimeter- the one that measures altitude- it tells you what, deep down, you knew all along but chose to forget. You're flying thousands of feet too low and you're in danger of hitting an ice storm.
I think this is the plight many Christians in America find themselves in. Your working life takes off and your job becomes your comfort, your friends and family are a source of happiness, our stuff becomes a source of fun, and (a big one for me) your books start to become your source of knowledge. Before you know it, your neglected spiritual life has taken a subtle but sure nosedive. God has become a concept and Christianity simply a language you speak when you're in a certain situation.
Then, this guy, Francis Chan, comes along and just spits out truths. The thing is it's not really him. He's just the messenger. He's talking about narrow paths and camels going through needles, about people being spit out. And that's when you see the low state of your spiritual condition. It hits you in the gut because it's true. Francis is simply the beep, saying, "Hey- LOOK AT YOUR LIFE!" As we glance at the "fruits/works" altimeter, we know something's not right- the plane is in a dangerous place.
You see, the plane is our heart- when it's working as it should be, works and fruit happen. The altimeter reads just fine. Notice that the altimeter, the fruits and works, though, are completely dependent on where the plane is at. When the plane starts to lose itself, the altimeter starts reading lower and lower- as our heart strays, the works and fruit dry up. If you're lucky, you've got the Chan alarm system there to let you know that the altimeter's reading low.
What happens next is the most interesting thing. This is just my experience, but I think any listeners of Francis can relate.
What if the following happened? Upon hearing the alarm, your copilot busts in the door and, rightly so, is very concerned. "We must take action!" he says and you agree. Then something curious happens. Instead of hopping in the seat to right the plane, he takes the cap off the altimeter and uses a screwdriver to turn the dial back to a "normal" setting. Though the plane heads ever lower into the storm, he sits back and breathes a sigh of relief.
As absurd as it sounds, this is what we do when we see our lack of fruit/works and we respond by trying to bear fruit and do good works. Futile. The meter will probably keep going back to the real altitude anyways, and you'll get really tired of constantly monitoring and changing it.
This is how we must understand Francis as well as the challenging words of Jesus. The challenge points to works and fruit in your life and it's convicting because we know it's true, BUT those works are only an indicator of the state of our soul. When we try to start "doing good things", we are the silly co-pilot who worries about gauges when the plane is what's in danger.
You and I must figure out some way to fly this plane that is our heart. It's not about the fruit and works; that would make it about us! It's about letting the pilot of our souls fly our plane to where he wants it. We've got to figure out this thing called the heart.
