Learning to love what gifts God gave us and being thankful for what was given to us helps temper this mentality I feel. My potential is great because God is great.

Well, first things first we have to really stop and think about what "Love" means, what we usually connect to this word would actually more aptly be defined as "affection", more often than not of the sensual kind... all of it governed by feelings, which is an animal fact, not really much to do with spirit at all.

If God IS Love, and I believe that to be the case, immediately there is a disconnect, because I really doubt that God IS mere feelingful affection...

Anyway with that said, I would wholly agree with your sentence, if you would only substitute "to love" with "to respect".

Respect from the latin "Respectus" which means literally "to look back", to look back upon yourself, and consider it's place among the whole.

We must Love God (and hopefully someday we'll fully understand what that word concept really means), and we must respect and be thankful to all which was given to us, and really understand that whatever good may come from our actions, it's only really flowing from God.