Loving God is simply not a condition. Loving God is something only a disciplined, mature believer can do.
Many non-Christians love God. It is not something that only a Christian can do.
Sacred Scripture is clear about that. Here are two examples of Jews who loved God.
(1) Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.
(2) I love you, O' Lord, my strength. (Psalm 18)
Receiving God's free gift of Eternal Life is not a life long pursuit, this happens in a moment of time it takes for a person to believe in Jesus. Saying receiving eternal life takes a lifetime of faith, love, repentance, etc.. is a works approach to receiving eternal life and gives no one eternal life.
I did not write all of that. I simply wrote that one must love God in order to be saved. And I gave you many verses from Holy Scripture that clearly teach that. Here is another verse that teaches it:
(3) If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.
Can someone have no love for the Lord and be accursed, and be saved at the same time? I highly doubt it.
Now, as for the question of whether the gift of eternal life takes a lifetime of faith, love and repentance, here are a few more Bible verses for your consideration. Please draw your own conclusions from them.
(1) I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
(2) Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
(3) But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
(4) Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
(5) He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
(6) But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
(7) Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
(8) You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
