I dare you! | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: I dare you! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gloria Pierre Dean
08/22/17
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"I dare you!"
From the back yard, Maida heard her young daughter's voice screeching these terrorizing words.

She had heard them before. Little brother could not resist her challenges and he always responded.

"No! No!" she said as she ran.
Her son Tony was standing on the edge of the swimming pool preparing to jump into the deep end.
"How could you Anna? How could you be so cruel to your brother?" she said with self-control. She grabbed him just before he flew into the air. He was five years old and barely able to swim. Anna was ten and resentful of her baby brother.

"What am I to do with them?” she asked her husband. They decided to be proactive and enrolled him in swimming classes and soon Anna's dares dried up. "Anna," Maida said lovingly as she could. "Remember that actions have consequences and your brother needs your protection."

About ten years later, Maida heard the same challenge coming out of Tony's mouth and this time he was daring Anna.
"I dare you!" he yelled at her.
"I will! I will!” was her ready response. The result was that the next day she joined the athletic club at college. Soon after she ran the 100-meter race and won and has hardly ever lost a race. She is now the holder of many medals. As an adult, she became a professional athlete and Tony flies helicopters for the Army.

A parallel story of an unreasonable dare happened two thousand years ago. On the world stage, the arch-evil satan tried to test the Holy Son of God. It had succeeded with Eve so he tried it again.
In Matthew {4:1-11}, Jesus had fasted for forty days and was hungry; the first test involved food. The enemy dared him to do a miracle and turn stones to bread.
He then changed tact and challenged his Lordship. 'Commit suicide' and see if Father saves you. Jesus’ responses came from Deuteronomy [6:16]- “Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

Finally, it was a challenge to His Father's power and Deity using world ownership as bait, saying 'bow down and worship me'.
We learned that the devil also knew the Bible but he mixed truth with lies. This time he miscalculated. In all of the three temptations Jesus Christ used the God-inspired Word as weapons of warfare and won.
After the devil left, angels came to minister to him. *Matthew 4:11
As the Word says, Christians must follow Christ's example and know, declare and stand on the Word in order to resist the enemy's dares or his attacks. The Word is The Sword of The Spirit* 1 Peter 1:17.

So also thankfully when Maida’s precocious ten-year-old daughter tried her five-year-old brother in an area of his weakness, she was there to protect him.

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