Combining between fear, hope and love

Combining between fear, hope and love 

A believer must combine between these three pillars in his relation with his Lord due to the following reasons:

• Worshipping Allah through fearing Him only results in losing hope in Allah's mercy, thinking ill of Him and finally disbelief.
• Worshipping Allah through "hope" [Ar.Raja'] only results in arrogance and false hopes while leaving good deeds which in turn expels a believer from the religion. 
• Worshipping Allah through love [Mahabbah] only is the methodology of extremist Sufis who say: we worship Allah but we neither fear His Hellfire nor aspiring for His Paradise; but just out of loving Him. This method is a corrupted one and results in evil consequences including feeling secure against Allah's plan which results in immorality and thus expulsion from the religion. 

The predecessors (may Allah have mercy on them) had a famous quote in this regard: "Whoever worships Allah through love only is considered an immoral person; whoever worships Him through fear only is a Kharijite; whoever worships Him through hope only is a Murji'; and whoever worships His through fear, love and hope is monotheistic believer".

Ibn al-Qayim said: "On his way to Allah, a [believer's] heart is likened to a bird: love is its head, fear and hope are its wings. Hence, when the head and wings are sound, the bird will perfectly fly; if the head is cut, the bird will die and when he loses the wings, he will be inevitably objected to hunting".