The great Chicago radio preacher of the ’40s and ’50s, J.C. O’Hair, pastor of the former North Shore Church which is today Shorewood Bible Church in Rolling Meadows, Ill., once noted, “If you will fall in with God's present plan, submit to His will and turn the government of your life over to the Son of God. . . He’ll let you into all of the secrets that you need to know, and answer all the whys that He thinks you ought to know.”

O’Hair’s long-time associate, nationally renowned Bible scholar C.R. Stam, once wrote, “What then, is our greatest drawback in Christian service? Obviously it is our lack of appreciation of the infinite love of Christ. Why do we not serve our blessed Lord as Paul did? Because we do not share his sense of being loved by Christ. Mark well, we are not referring to our love for Christ, but to His love for us.

“Have you ever noticed that Paul says little or nothing about his love for Christ, while he is constantly talking about Christ's love for him?. . .

“How can we overcome our natural indifference to His love? How can we cast off this evil drag on our Christian experience?

“Ah, the apostle explains this at length in Ephesians 3:14-21. . . First, he says, Christ must dwell in our hearts by faith that we might be ‘rooted and grounded in love.’ We must draw our strength from His love as a tree, through its roots, draws its strength from the ground. All we do must be founded on His love to us, not a desire to gain His favor, or fear that we might displease Him.

“Thus alone will we be able to ‘comprehend,’ or appreciate, the breadth, length, depth, and height of God's great message of grace.

“And as we measure the dimensions of this glorious plan we find ourselves launching out into the depths of the love of Christ.”

In an audio study on his website, Oklahoma TV preacher Les Feldick makes the point, “Remember, God doesn't want someone in His Heaven if they can't respond to His love. But to those who respond to His love, He's prepared things like what Paul says: ‘But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’

“Oh listen, the world out there, I know, thinks that we're a bunch of kooks, and fanatic nuts, and I know they do. And I just tell them, ‘Hey, live it for 70 or 80 years.’ I've got an eternity of the things that will make the best this earth can offer seem like an old pig pen by comparison. But you see they can't understand that we have simply responded to an extended love, and that's why He went to the Cross; it was love.”

Feldick says in this same study, “You talk to good people here in Oklahoma or anywhere else you can think of, and they'll say, ‘Well, no, I don't hate God. I love God, I believe in Him, I'm not His enemy.’ Oh, no? The Book says they are, and the Book doesn't lie. Now, how can the Book say that when people say the opposite? Because you see their old Adamic nature is still a rebel, and that's what people have to be convinced of. Their old Adamic nature is a natural born rebel against the things of God. And if you're a rebel, then you're an enemy!

“There are many of us who use the expression, ‘With friends like that, who needs enemies?’ Well, it's the same way with God. A lot of these people who claim to be His friend, hey, He can't call them His friends! They're His enemy! Why? Because they're in that state of mind that is rebellious. They're not going to do what God says to do. They're not going to admit that they're a sinner. They're not going to admit that they have a spiritual lacking. Well, what is that? That's rebellion. And when you're a rebel, then you're an enemy, and it's that simple.”

As Stam also once wrote, “Let us beware of confusing faith with presumption. Cain presumed that God would accept his attractive sacrifice instead of the prescribed one, but God refused both him and his offering. Pharaoh presumed that he could take his armies through the Red Sea as Moses had done, but he led them all to destruction for presuming upon God. Naaman the leper, refused God's way of cleansing, saying: ‘I thought. . .’ but the great general remained a leper until he humbled himself and took God at His Word.”

Feldick notes, “Most of the giants of the faith in biblical times were unlearned and ignorant men by the world's standard. The Bible is a Who's Who of shortcomings: Noah's drunkenness, Moses' speech impediment, David's adulterous ways, Peter's denials, Paul's repulsive appearance, etc. Nevertheless, God used these souls mightily ‘to the pulling down of strongholds,’ despite their failures. As it has been said, ‘God took a handful of nobodies and made them somebodies in His sight.’

“While we are an advocate of higher education, intellectualism is not a prerequisite to be used of the Lord. God has accomplished great things through those who merely had a willing heart. Timothy, for example, wasn't educated at the Ivy League schools of Jerusalem; nonetheless, God chose him to carry the torch of grace after Paul's martyrdom.”