The first thing you need to know to have a personal relationship with God is that God loves you very much. In fact, He loves you more than your family loves you and even more than you love yourself. God even went so far as to prove His love for us. Even though God loves us, there is a serious problem that prevents us from having a personal relationship with Him. That problem is called sin.
Sin is like our blemishes.
Notice that ALL people are sinful. Unfortunately, there are serious consequences to our sin problem. The penalty of our sin is death. This death is not just physical death, but also spiritual death, which means spiritual separation from God forever. That's what hell is.