James 4:7
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
There are a number of mistakes we can make about the devil. Typically, the two main ones are to hold either too great or too small a belief in his existence. Many moderns disbelieve in him, which is something like a 1930s Frenchman thinking his disbelief in the existence of Adolf Hitler will prevent Germany from attacking his country. Whatever opinions we hold about the devil, he continues to hold very predatory ones about us. He does so for the same reason that a man with a psychopathic hatred for an enemy will seek to hurt his enemy’s children. To hate the Creator is to hate his creation. However, there is also the opposite mistake, of believing in the devil too much and attempting to summon him in various occult rites. People who do so are likely to get what they want, though whether they shall like it when they do is another question. Most of us are somewhere in between these two extremes and so the devil must tempt us as he tempted Jesus, with the scheme to get us worshipping something that is secondary to God. Do that, and you are sinning. Put God first above all creatures and you are resisting the devil. It’s that simple. But you can only do that with the help of Jesus. It is he, not your will power, that drives the devil off.
