"Examine Yourselves to See Whether You Are in the Faith"

There is a tension in Scripture between accountability and grace.  It is clear that "It is by Grace that we are saved, though faith....not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9)."  And yet, Paul writes in 1 Cor. 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether or not you are in the faith; test yourselves."  How do we fit these together?  First, we know that God does not decide to forgive us and make us his child based on his evaluation of our life--we are all unworthy before God.  However, after he has saved us, God does call us to constantly evaluate how obediently we are living the Christian life and to work with the Spirit (Phil 2:12-13) to live more obediently.  Because of this conviction, Sous Espwa (the ministries of the CRCNA in Haiti) does an evaluation of its partner ministries every three years.  Last week Zachary organized an evaluation of the Christian Reformed Church of Haiti (CRCH).  Such evaluations are always bittersweet.  We witness the great things God has done in the last three years (such as growing the CRCH from 32 to 45 congregations and increasing the membership) but also noting some of the organizational weaknesses that must be rectified.  The biggest weakness we found was a continuing dependency on mission funds for the national administration of the CRCH.  At the end of the evaluation recommendations were made to leverage strengths and remedy its weaknesses.  Please pray for the problem of dependency as it is an epidemic in the Haitian church.  Pray that Zach and other staff can find strategies to help the CRCH become more financially independent.  Pray also the CRC of Haiti leaders will recognize the problem and seek other sources of income for important ministry initiatives.