a person who has a personal heart-to-heart relationship with the living God, characterized by warm and active acceptance on God's part; our honesty and dependence on the activities of Jesus Christ.Let's look at this a little more closely.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough the personal character of this relationship.
I see so many aberrations and stunted-growth versions of it. It is not a formal
relationship, a primarily legal one, or even simply a 'creature-Creator' relationship.
(I find the human tendency to relegate God into a religious icon or image or object to
depersonalize the relationship and short-change the possibilities of such a
relationship--much as we do in other significant personal relationships in our lives.)
The main thing in the universe
that God the Father loves...is God the Son. When we are honest with the Father about
who his Son is, and what he did in history for us, God welcomes us into this warm
relationship...We simply have to be honest with Him about his dearly-loved Son.
The second part of this is dependence. We depend on Him for the 'repair'
of our relationship WITH Him. He is the active one, coming in history to earth and
taking upon Himself the consequences of our moral failure. We simply are honest about
those actions/events to the extent that we rely upon those actions/events as an adequate basis for God's warm acceptance of us. In other
words, we agree with God that his Son's life and work are sufficient grounds to accept
us into this special relationship. It's that simple.