First off something is wrong because you are not understanding the truth. You do have to surrender your self to God. God wants all of you. Now I did not speak of works. But God said faith with out works in dead, read James. He said The Holy Spirit brings forth works from us, again Jesus sermon on I am the True Vine. He says everyone in Him produces fruit, not by a persons own means but because the Tree(Jesus), brings forth fruit from us the branches.
God does not require we do anything ourselves but give completely are self. What that looks like is complete dependence on God. Now you might not understand that. What that looks like is the person can not go a day with out connecting to God is some way. That is required of us, they God produces works from us. God calls it forth not us, and we do not earn anything, but we are willing to be used by God, That what the surrender is, you wish to do His will above your own.
Now we all sin, anyone who says they do not sin is a liar, but we have forgiveness.
The grace that brought us to Love God was Jesus giving His life paying our debt for sins, when a person realizes this they break down and cry, that is the Love. You Love God from the second you are saved that is what getting saved is. It is not saying Jesus is the Son of God, demons say this same things yet will never be saved. It is surrender and love of God. Then you pass from death to life.
No, I perfectly understand what you believe, and I disagree. And I really wish people would stop telling me to read certain books or verses as if I'm some ignorant buffoon on the Bible who has no idea what he is talking about. I'm a 15 year old who is being raised in a very Christian household, so I know my stuff.
Yes, James does say that, but he's talking about the evidence of your Faith, or sanctification, which is the life long process in which the believer is made more Christ-like, different from Justification, which is when the believer is legally declared not guilty by Faith alone. Confusing Justification with Sanctification is a very big and common mistake Christians tend to make.
Surrendering your life to God is again, a work, as it requires you to actively do something to be saved, apart from being justified by trust in Christ's death.
Again, the love of God is something that grows greater inside of you as you walk with Christ, it isn't something you can expect perfectly from every new Christian. Which leads me to a second common mistake I believe you are making.
You are taking your personal conversion and applying it as a catch all to all Christians. Maybe you instantly had a massive emotional experience and a massive love for God, that's great, but that's just your experience.
Due to the fact that every human is different, so is every conversion. For example, person 1 might be a drug addicted gangster who becomes saved and it is extremely obvious due to the 180 in their life. Then you have person 2 who is what might be considered by human standards to be a "good person", they give to charity, help the homeless, etc. Now they are converted, but the differences in their life is much more subtle due to already
being, for lack of a better word, a more "well-rounded" person. So each person must be judged on their own standards.
Salvation is a very special event and I don't think you can confine it into one exact system for every human alive.