It is commonly presumed in our Western, self-reliant culture, that not only is God accessible to us (believer or unbeliever), but that it is something of a birth-right (if you’re born, you have the right!) to have access to God. In this way, it is believed, God is our servant.
Well, He is accessible. But not on that basis. Richard Sibbes explains:
In our daily approach to God…we go to God in the name of the one [Christ] he loves, “in whom his soul delights”…
God loves and delights in him for the work of salvation and redemption by his blood. Shall we not love and embrace him for his love which is for our good?…
We should therefore desire God to shed the love of Christ into our hearts more and more, that we may feel in our souls the love that he bears to us. [A Description of Christ; HT: A Golden Treasury of Puritan Devotion)
Words of Grace 