Personal Relationship With God: We All Have One

"In actual fact, isn't it true we are all born into this world in a relationship with God. Everyone has a relationship with God. Atheists have a personal relationship with God. God is not separated from any of us. The question is whether the God who is near is near in wrath or forgiveness. . . . If your way of explaining the Gospel doesn't get you within two seconds to Jesus Christ and His work on the cross, it is not a biblical way of presenting salvation. . . . You do have a personal relationship with God. Now, the question is do you have a mediator - Jesus Christ? If you don't, than that relationship is one of wrath, and it's judgment."
- Dr. Michael Horton, White Horse Inn, The Gospel of Personal Relationship, Aired: Sunday, April 20, 2008)

Ephesians 2:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

I Timothy 2:5
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

"Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice."
John Stott, The Cross of Christ (InterVarsity, 1986), pg. 15.



THE GLORY OF THE CROSS
What wisdom once devised the plan, Where all our sin and pride
Was placed upon the perfect Lamb, Who suffered, bled, and died?
The wisdom of a Sovereign God, Whose greatness will be shown
When those who crucified Your Son
Rejoice around Your throne

[Chorus] And, oh, the glory of the cross
That You would send Your Son for us
I gladly count my life as loss
That I might come to know
The glory of, the glory of the cross

What righteousness was there revealed, That sets the guilty free
That justifies ungodly men, And calls the filthy clean?
A righteousness that proved to all, Your justice has been met
And holy wrath is satisfied
Through one atoning death

[Chorus]

What mercy now has been proclaimed, For those who would believe
A love incomprehensible, Our minds could not conceive?
A mercy that forgives my sin, Then makes me like Your Son
And now I’m loved forevermore
Because of what You’ve done

[Chorus]

Bob Kauflin, The Glory of the Cross, Songs for the Cross Centered Life (© 2000 Sovereign Grace Praise [BMI])