Part 1
It is sad to see many Christians live all their lives without a relationship with God. They might attend church, read the Bible, participate in prayer meetings and do all kinds of charity. Yet they lack a real, loving relationship with God. I hope that you are not one among many who value church traditions more than your relationship with God.
The starting point of the relationship is to understand that God is a person and not merely a force of nature. In His wisdom and power, He created everything that you see around you. More than that you too are the work of His hands (Psalm 139:13-16). He is thus your Creator and has a relationship to you as such.
The second point is that this relationship was broken because man sinned. There is no need to define sin. We all know that we do wrong in our thoughts, words and deeds most of the time. This breaks our relationship with God because God is holy. He is light and there is no darkness in Him. So He cannot be together with us. Just as we won’t allow children in our family to sit and dine with us after they come in sweat and dirt from a days’ work or play. Only when they wash themselves and become clean will they be welcome to sit together with others and eat together.
The third point is that even though we can wash off dirt from our physical bodies, it is not possible to wash off the dirt of sin from our souls. That God alone can do. But first He had to teach man how costly sin is. It broke the relationship with God. It cut us off from His immediate Presence. It brought the punishment of death accompanied by all sorts of sorrow and sickness and suffering. But then God also showed man that the broken relationship can be restored only through the sacrifice of sinless blood. For that innocent animals like sheep and lambs were killed. All these sacrifices pointed to the shedding of blood of Jesus on the cross. Only His shed blood cleanses us and purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7). When that cleansing happens in our lives, the relationship with God is restored.
The last point is that we need to maintain this restored relationship with God. It is not easy at all. This is because we have got an enemy. His name is Satan. He tempts us to sin. Our own wickedness finds these temptations attractive. So we sin often. But since we now have a restored relationship with God, we will not find sinning comfortable. We often find that there is a struggle within us when we try to avoid temptation to sin. Sometimes we find temptations too powerful to resist. So, God has sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts to help us. Therefore He is called our Helper or Counsellor (John 14:16). Without His help we cannot win in our fight against sin. Also, we need His help to maintain our relationship with God.