Hey I want to say thanks to everyone ahead of time for answering. So basically there’s a couple people I’ve been thinking about lately and have felt the urge to invite them to church. I guess my question is how do I discern whether it’s god who’s put them on my heart between if it’s just my desire because they’re family? And if this sounds stupid I’m sorry lol
If you had in your possession an endless wellspring of water in a land where people were dying of thirst, would you expect God to "put people on your heart" - whatever that means - before you offered them water to drink? I hope not. In the same way, you have the One who can eternally satisfy the spiritual thirst of the lost living within you, who has commanded all of his own to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel." (
Mark 16:15) You don't need God to "put it on your heart" to share the Gospel with this couple in your family. He's already commanded you to share His light with them. What, then, are you waiting for?
You noticed, I'm sure, that I didn't urge you to take your family members to your church. The Church is not for the lost but for believers. The people who make up the Church are to go out and be "salt and light" (
Matthew 5:13-16) in their own social spheres, sharing the Gospel with all who will listen, and bringing some, perhaps, to faith in Christ. And when they have trusted in Christ as Saviour and Lord,
then it is time to bring them into the fellowship of believers, the Body of Christ, the Church. But not before.
Why? Because the Church is the congregation of the
saved, of born-again children of God, who study His word together, pray together, and worship their Maker in song. How can a non-believer participate in any way in these activities without being guilty of hypocrisy and perhaps even blasphemy? Should we encourage the lost to sing songs of worship to a God they neither know nor love? (
Matthew 15:7-8) Should we invite the lost to pray (except, of course, for a prayer of salvation) with believers to a God who is unknown to them and before whom they live in constant rebellion ? (
Psalms 66:18; Isaiah 59:2; 1 Peter 3:12) Should we include the lost in a study of God's word that can only be properly understood by those in whom God's Spirit dwells? (
John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 2:10-14; 1 John 4:5-6) Scripture indicates we most definitely should not.
Christians are to
go out from the Church and share the Gospel with the lost, not bring them to their church so the pastor can do so. Evangelism is the responsibility of every child of God, though some are especially gifted by God to do so. If members of a local community of believers rely upon their pastor(s) to evangelize, a choke-point or bottleneck forms in the church that actually strangles evangelism. There is simply no way a pastor or group of pastors can reach with the Good News of salvation all those in the various social spheres of the individual members of their congregation. Many in our social spheres will never set foot in a church. What then? Do we hide our light from them, silent while they travel the Broad Way to eternal destruction?
And what of Paul's warning not to allow "leaven" (aka - sin) into the Church? (
1 Corinthians 5) He wrote that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump." When believers bring the lost into their community, their spiritual
family, the "leaven" of that lost person intrudes upon that family and "infects" the Body of Believers, making it weaker and sin-sick.
Anyway, all this to say that
you are the Church of God, and when you are with this couple you've mentioned, they are "at church" and from you, then, ought to hear of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and see the light of the Saviour shining brightly from you. And when God uses your witness (or the witness of another) to save this couple,
then it is time to introduce them to the Body of Believers, the Church.
