You equate love with sentiment. Love is the highest discipline, the source of Godliness and the most intense of works. The price of love is absolute sacrifice, surrendering oneself with no attempt to find oneself worthy of any good. Only God is love just as only God is good. There is no love and no goodness outside Him. If you wish to have the love of God you must surrender every aspect of your life to Him. I get none of that from your understanding of love.
What do you mean by sentiment?
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus teaches "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So how do you explain Jesus including the second greatest commandment wit the first - loving our neighbors as ourselves?
I understand that your criteria for loving God "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" is based on the condition of "surrendering oneself with no attempt to find oneself worthy of any good." Funny Jesus didn't mention self-abasement in His description. And I am absolutely positive that my love for God doesn't measure up to your requirements - my only, constant prayer is that somehow, someway, God accepts the feebleness and cowardice of my love for Him as adequate, and doesn't hold me to your exalted, perfect standards.
But what about the other part? What part does self-abasement play in loving our neighbor as ourselves? Is that "just" sentiment? Is it trivial? Jesus plainly did not portray it as trivial. He said "ALL the law and the prophets hang on these TWO commandments." So according to your requirements, how is that to be done, how are we to love one another and not make it merely "sentimental"?
You equate love with sentiment. Love is the highest discipline, the source of Godliness and the most intense of works. The price of love is absolute sacrifice, surrendering oneself with no attempt to find oneself worthy of any good. Only God is love just as only God is good. There is no love and no goodness outside Him. If you wish to have the love of God you must surrender every aspect of your life to Him. I get none of that from your understanding of love.
Love is a word that quickly goes over our tongue and we think we know what it means but we really don’t.
Finally in Mal 1:2,3 I got a better answer. There is a very visual picture there if you think about it. I finally was able to distill it down to one word that gives me understanding. I wonder if you come to the same word or if it is just me. Remember, this is God’s answer to the question, not mine, so it has a pretty high authority.