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How many times do we hear people say things like it was only a white lie, or nobody got hurt, or it really wasn’t that bad? Sometimes, referred to as small sins or “secret sins”. A small sin can be the cause of a Christian’s stumbling block if not dealt with properly. It is like a cancer that grows and destroys our soul. If you are a pilot or navigator of a ship or aircraft, there is a rule that you use when planning how to get to the destination in case you get off course. It is called the 1:60 rule of navigation. As Christians, we should use the same rule when planning our life and where we are headed as Christians. As we all know a circle contains 360°. If a navigator (the Christian) is off track by just 1° it would not seem like much. That is not the truth. The rule states that for every 60 miles you travel if you’re off just 1° you are now 1 mile off track. If you’re planning to travel from let’s say New York to Barcelona, Spain that is approximately 3,836 miles. By the time you get there, assuming you’re only off 1° you are 60 miles off track and could be in a different country. The same with our Christian walk except we’re talking a lifetime. We also need to remember that my example is only 1° off. What if we are 10° or 20° or even 50° off where will we end up? If we use the 1; 60 Rule of navigation as a guide I think you’ll see what I mean. Let’s use the example I set as traveling from New York to Barcelona, Spain as the 2000 years of history. The pastors or leaders of a church could be paralleled to the navigator of the church. Studies of effective leaders suggest an average tenure of 11.2 to 21.6 years, so for this example let’s say fifteen years as an average. Using these numbers would give us a little over 130 pastors during that time span. If only 25% were off on doctrine just 1° then the church’s doctrine will be off by 32.5°. If you are navigating to Barcelona, Spain you would end up 2,084 miles south of Barcelona which would be somewhere in the middle of the West African coast probably around the country of Senegal or Guinea. What if they are 5%, 10 %, or even more. So you can see it would not take much to be way off course. This is why the apostle Paul is constantly saying to check the spirits, refer to the manual which is the Bible. The Bible is our navigational map through life. Without it, we would be lost, literally. So many times decisions are made to increase the size of the congregation or some other decision but unknowingly in the process compromises are made. The problem with these tiny compromises is that we don’t even realize their accuracy according to Scripture until we’re in another country so to speak.