A Relationship With God?

I recently heard some people talking about having a personal relationship with God. While I grew up in an evangelical culture, I can put meaning to this phrase, but as I have grown in my understanding of God and theology, I have developed a distaste for this type of language. Given the nature of the phrase and the ways in which it is used, I am not convinced that there is a technical definition of what is meant by a personal relationship, but here is a fairly basic understanding that fits within my experience growing up:

Having a personal relationship with God begins the moment we realize our need for Him, admit we are sinners, and in faith receive Jesus Christ as Savior. God, our heavenly Father, has always desired to be close to us, to have a relationship with us...Due to the sin of man, we became separated and disconnected from God.

There are a number of things I could comment on with this answer, but I do not intend to do so here. Instead, I want to briefly think about what it means to have a personal relationship with God.

In orthodox Christianity, we believe in a Triune God, that is a God who is one being and three persons. Without getting into the technical discussion here, I find a point in volume 2 of Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics on the nature on personhood to be very helpful: "The word 'persona' [latin for 'person] now expresses two things: self-existence and rationality (or self-consciousness)" (Bavinck, p. 301).

This is a relevant piece of theology because it clarifies something that we need to keep in mind. Every single person who has ever existed has had a "personal relationship with God" because God is a Trinity of persons. Regardless of your belief or disbelief in God, you are in relationship with him. This is inescapable. This is part of our reality as creatures, that we are always in some type of relationship with our Creator. In contrast with a Deistic conception of God, the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it nicely in section 7.1:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which He has been pleased to express by way of covenant.

We are not simply created and left alone, but we are created into relationship with our Creator. This has profound implications in our evangelism.

When people talk about the need for having a personal relationship with God, it can come across as if there is not already a presently existing relationship. This is false. While it is true that unbelievers are enemies of God, enemies have a relationship with each other. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity became a man and lay down his life in order to reconcile God and man, to make us sons of God, not to create a relationship. The gospel is good news because it removes us from our adversarial relationship and puts us in a familial relationship, but all mankind has a personal relationship with God. The issue is this: what is the nature of your relationship? Trust in Christ and become a son of God.