God and His Right to be loved

 
"Love of God means staking ones life on God - putting God before anything else and seeing all one's relationships in terms of a relationship to God. Love is not soppy or emotional, it is painful and hard because it means loving even when the initial emotion of love may have faded." Peter Vardy, The Puzzle of Sex.

The quote above summarises how Jesus meant by saying we must love God with our entire being that God alone matters.

Many say that love is a person - God. Love is an attribute of God. But is love a person? Many say no. They say love is descriptive therefore it isn't and cannot be a person. They are right. But nevertheless the Christian is to treat God as if he were love and love is a person.
 
The godly say we must love God with all our heart and love others just to please him and to be moral. They say that the motive behind all righteousness must be love for God. If you love God totally you cannot love what is good. Loving God is not the same thing as loving good. It is no answer to say that good would not exist if God did not exist for it would. If nothing existed that would be good in some way. So, God and goodness are not the same thing. You love God or you love what is right. Or you do both. What is right comes before even love for there is such a thing as love that does more harm than good. Thus we cannot say we need to hold there is a God in order to believe in good and evil. How could God or belief in him be needed for that when they are not as important as right and wrong?
 
Loving what is right at all is against the command to love God alone.
 
If you love God for his sake only you do not love him at all in reality for you do not love him for the sake of what is right. You are offering him evil and therefore false love. And if you love him for what is right you still do not love him for you are only using him to satisfy righteousness for it is righteousness that you really care for. You are worshipping an idol you have made out of your thoughts and desires.
 
I must not then love God or anybody more than myself. I love goodness more than him. I cannot love him alone. I should not. If I try to love him alone I will violate my love for goodness and not be able to love him anyway.
 
The idea of some writers that loving God with all our hearts merely means keeping his commandments is an over-simplification. It is supposed to be that but more. If you love God's commandments, that does not mean you necessarily love God as a person. To love a person's rules is not the same as loving the person. Jesus said that we are to love God as a person with all our hearts. That means we do everything for God alone. We love God with all our hearts. Our neighbour is not to be loved with all our hearts. Neither are we to love ourselves that way. Why are we to love God then that much? Is it because he is good? It can't be for we are to love our enemies. Is it because he is a person? Then if he is, what about the people around you? What about your children? He might be a person with infinite power but he is still just a person. His power or rank makes no difference. Perhaps we owe him obedience because he made us? But he needs nothing for he is perfect and happy. So we owe him nothing. God should not be loved more than any other person.