You Cannot Love a Person You See As a Threat

 You cannot love someone whom your brain is screaming at you is a threat. You can certainly have an attachment to them, as many have attachments to those who threaten them, but that is not loving them. To love someone is a choice, not an attachment or an emotion. The moment you see someone as a threat, your fear response kicks in which then can also trigger your aggression response. The brain only knows two ways to deal with threats. Seeing the other person as yourself, or yourself in the other person, having compassion on them, is not one of them. The brain cannot be allowed to engage its threat response system if it is your goal to love this other person. You can either love this other person, or you can see them as a threat, but you cannot do both. Your brain will not allow you to do it.

     Therefore, when you are aggressive towards someone, you cannot love them simultaneously in that moment. When you are scared of someone, you cannot simultaneously love them in that moment. Again, love is a choice to have compassion on the other person, to see yourself in the other person. It is an action, not an emotion.

     If we are to love the person next to us as ourselves, then we cannot see them as a threat. Whether or not we see them as a threat is up to us. It is a choice we make, or rather it is a choice we are capable of making upon reflection of our own subconscious attitudes, biases, and preconceptions. One does not try to protect themselves from a person whom they are choosing to love as themselves. This is why Jesus taught to "turn the other cheek," and "if someone takes your coat, give him your shirt as well," and "if someone forces to go one mile with him, go with him two." He also explicitly taught to "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse and misuse you." In order to do these things, you cannot see this other abusive person as a threat. Love and fear are mutually exclusive. As John wrote, "Love brought to completion tosses fear out."

     The threat and needs assessment system in the human brain is to what Paul was referring when he talked about "the flesh" in almost every case. As John wrote also, "God is love." Paul wrote, "Operate in the Spirit, and you will in no wise bring the works of the flesh to fulfillment." We must disengage from this threats and needs assessment system and submit to or cooperate with the Spirit of Christ in order to love so that it is God who acts and speak through us, because then it is Love Himself who will be responding to the other person, regardless of what they do or say.