On November 4, 2010, an Airbus A380, one of the largest passenger airplanes in the world blew an engine while in flight. That engine failure almost destroyed the large airliner with 440 passengers. The pilots were able to safely turn the airliner around and land it, but the engine failure could have killed all of those on board. When the ATSB investigators finished their detailed study of what caused the engine to explode, they found it was a small oil pipe in the engine that broke, leaking oil into a place where it caught fire and that caused the explosion. When they further investigated the pipe, they found that the manufacturer of the pipe had made it too thin on one side, which caused it to break. Out of the hundreds of parts in a jet engine, one little pipe that wasn’t made properly almost destroyed hundreds of lives.
In James 3:5, James reminds us that it only takes a little spark to start a huge forest fire: “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” And the same is true with our lives as Christians. We too often think that the “little” sins in our lives are fine, they don’t hurt anything. We read the Bible, pray, go to church, try to live good lives, etc., so if we just indulge ourselves with one or two little things that maybe aren’t exactly good for us or right – what harm can it do?
I don’t know all of the details about why the manufacturer of the oil pipe allowed it to be created with one side too thin, but it could have been just someone saying, “ah, it’s just one side of a little pipe, what harm can it do?” And it almost killed 440 people!
The Bible is VERY VERY clear about sin. ALL SIN! It says, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) We CANNOT allow even the smallest sin to stay alive. We MUST seek to TRULY follow Jesus Christ, and that means living a life that is holy as HE is holy…NO DARKNESS AT ALL!
You’ll never know God’s best for your life when you keep allowing the “little” sins to fester and remain in your life.