Playing The Long Game
Satan lies and deceives to make you believe in him rather than God, and those who listen and believe the devil’s words are already on the path to destruction. It is faith in the wrong object. It is faith in the devil. 
He is crafty and makes you think you said those tempting words in your own mind. It is all you and not some supernatural entity tempting you, the devil will say. He says it in ways that sound like you and uses words and inflections just like you. Think about it. Do you know when he is there listening to you? Do you know he is watching your every move to see where he can catch you off guard? Do you know he is waiting for opportunities to tempt you to sin? He does all this by imitating your voice. You will most likely follow through with that sin because you tempted yourself, and you are responsible. Somehow, it just seems more natural or permissive if the temptation is personal, versus being tempted by someone or something else. It seems more excusable and allowable. But if someone else tempted us to sin, then start the blame game.
When you rationalize with yourself about sin, you will most likely commit that sin, because the temptation came from within you. But if you believed someone else was tempting you, your defenses would go up, and you would guard yourself against that temptation. However, not discerning the voice in your head is what lures you into that sin. People are more likely to resist temptations coming from others, but temptations coming from within are tough to overcome. They believe the desire and feeling were generated within themselves, and if it came out from within, then it must not be that bad. If it was there all along, then that is what I desire, they would say. 
Their train of thought follows this pattern rationally until sin is consummated. If I have this desire and feeling, then I must want this, and enjoying this can’t be bad. You become lured like a fish being attracted by the bait of a fisherman. A fisherman doesn’t jump in the water and grab the fish with his bare hands. Instead, he hangs out a piece of bait on an invisible line for the fish to smell. While the fisherman’s line is out, he will chum more bait to lure the fish. Soon after, when he knows he has the fish, he will set the hook, and he will be caught. In the same way, the devil lures us with things that are permissive, then catches us in addiction or habits. Pretty soon, you will find yourself doing the very thing you swore you would never do. The devil has you in that moment and will try to keep you there as long as possible. He not only wants you to sin, but he wants you to continue sinning forever.
Life in eternity has no time, so the purpose is to keep you in a state of sin continually in the present. Sin is not about what you did in the past, and that counts against you. Sin is about the state of being you are in. Are you living in sin, or have you repented? Are you hung up on sin in the present, or does your desire for righteousness overrule your desire for sin? Don’t get caught up in things you’ve done in the past, and don’t get worried about things you will do in the future. 
Worry about today and what you are doing today. One day at a time, we are to live out our salvation as an ongoing process of sanctification. This is a daily process and practice, and it should not be based on any time in the past as your future. Are you a Christian today? Do you believe in Jesus today? That should be your focus, not tomorrow or yesterday. Live in the moment where you are currently. Do you need to get your life back on track? Turn to Christ today, not tomorrow, and not later.
Repentance is a daily act of change and determination to redirect your mind, choices, and will. Repentance should be a daily practice, just like brushing your teeth and taking a shower. You repent every day, and you keep repenting every day until you reach glory with Christ. The devil wants to keep you in a state of sin, and that is how he can chip away at your faith little by little. 
Daily, he is trying to contradict your belief and love for God. He does this every day and every moment you are unguarded. Have you noticed that when you do something bad, initially, you feel guilty. After repetitive sinning, you lose the guilt and make excuses for your sins. Then, after years of sinning, you don’t realize how long and how often you have been sinning. You lost count. What once brought extreme shame and guilt has not become a daily habit. The devil wants to keep you in that state till your last day. Without Christ, you will never be free. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:7). The devil can out-wait you, so don’t try to do it on your own. God is your only hope and assurance.
The Devil Is In The Details
The devil is two-faced and flips back and forth. The devil dwells in the extreme regions of all things. He plays in the arena of “all the way,” or “not at all.” He does not like the middle ground, nor does he like balance and moderation. He will convince you to commit that act of sin you’ve been struggling with, and give in to your desires. But wait, the moment you do, he will accuse you of what you just did and cause you shame.
“How can you be a Christian and do that? What kind of human are you? You think Jesus forgave you of that sin? You still haven’t repented. Jesus said, ‘You must repent and believe.’ You are still living in your sins. You will never succeed in life doing what you do. God will never bless you because you continue to sin. You are a hypocrite and should just give up this Christian thing. God is disappointed with you. God is not happy with how you are living. Maybe you aren’t a Christian after all. Maybe you were faking it all this time and even fooled yourself. Hey, at least if you are not a Christian, you won’t feel guilty anymore, right?” – Satan
Does any of this sound familiar to you? They all share the same purpose: for you to lose faith, hope, and love in Christ. The devil’s ultimate desire is not to get you to sin one more time, but to hurt God one more time. 
The devil hates God and would do anything to cause God pain in any way he could. He knows his inevitable doom. He has no hope of change or repentance. There is no mercy given to the fallen angels. His doom is sure, and he knows it is coming. He is just a pawn in the game, and God makes the rules. Do not think that the devil has a say in the future outcome. God has already pre-determined the future. Time will fulfill all promises and prophecies. Even so, the devil tries to hurt God where he could hurt Him. Hurting God is the goal, and how he hurts God is by causing you to lose faith. He wants those who have faith to lose it, and those who have no faith, or faith in the wrong things, to never have it.
Faith is your friend, but to the devil, faith is foolishness. His normative play in society is to make faith look like ignorance and fantasy, while science and biology are the truth. 
Christians face a greater challenge in evangelizing in the modern world due to the issue of disbelief in the spiritual realm. In essence, the devil set up the stage for people to not even believe in the devil. Society’s image of the devil is often depicted as a chubby, red baby with a pitchfork. He takes his image from fear to ridiculousness. Either you will fear the devil, or you will laugh it off. In either case, you won’t believe he is real. It is an attempt to remove the spiritual completely from the natural world. Evolution and science make more sense than God and the invisible world. This is because it is impossible to prove the spiritual realm, thus making it one step below the natural world. That is according to our perspective. But in reality, the spiritual world plays a huge part in the natural world. They are coexisting in unison, all leading up to the Revelation of Jesus’ Second Coming.
The devil likes extremes. He wants you to either believe in him or not. In both cases, he wins. 
He wants you to believe him when he tempts you in your own voice. He wants you to believe him when he twists the truth into a lie. He wants you to believe him when he reminds you of your past sins and has you relive them repeatedly. He wants you to love and believe in him, just as children of God love and worship Jesus Christ. He wants to be like God…still. His desire to be like God, which had been present since the Garden of Eden, remained unchanged. We all worship something in this world. We will worship the triune God of the Bible or some false god created in the imagination. If you are not worshiping Jesus Christ, then you are worshiping something the devil wants you to worship. He wants you to worship anything other than Jesus Christ.
The term “The devil is in the details” originated from the saying “God is in the details,” meaning it is a sign of excellence and devotion. This term evolved in the middle of the 20th century into the devil being in the details of problems. It highlights the risk and difficulty hidden in the fine print. It is a term used in business, law, and engineering to point out that minor details can lead to big problems if ignored. In the spiritual sense, if we ignore the little things, such as temptations, listening to voices, and following our inclinations and desires, then it can lead to significant issues later on. In this case, we must major in the minors.
Your faith as a believer should continually grow every day, even if it is just a little. These little details in change and momentum are the progress we desire to see as a growing believer. We want to know if there is progress in our growth. The degree and speed of growth vary, but there should always be some evidence of change and growth since your conversion.
Sometimes you may barely see any evidence, but the fact that there is any evidence is key. Take a look back at your behavior, mindset, and will. Have they changed since you were an unbeliever? Do you see and think differently, not because of some traumatic experience, but from the revelation of God? If you do not see any changes whatsoever, then it may be time to ask yourself if you really believe what the Bible says is true. The devil wants you to question it. He will lead you to sin, accuse you of that sin, and then try to continue that momentum on a downward spiral. He wants you to fail, but at a rate you are comfortable with. It’s all about you. He masks himself to make you think he cares about you and looks out for your best interests.
The Devil knows Scripture. He probably knows the Bible more than you do; that is how he uses it to deceive so many people throughout history. He even attempted to use 
Scripture against Jesus as he tried to tempt the Son of God in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11). The perfect inerrant Word of God cannot be misconstrued, but people have managed to twist and turn the Word to mean something else that fits their needs. All those misinterpretations and cultish beliefs originate from the evil one. He is the one twisting and turning the Word to mean something else. Our sinful minds and hearts take the devil’s interpretations and rationalize them as truth. We create various doctrines and teachings that contradict the rest of Scripture and develop a new theology tailored to each individual. This practice is unbiblical and heretical, and the reason why there were so many cults throughout history. We must never treat the Word of God as a buffet where we pick and choose what we like and discard what we don’t. Our consumer mentality is what’s driving us to do this. God is not an option for you to choose. God’s Word was not given as one of many truths given. There is only One Truth and One Way, and that is Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
The devil tricks people into thinking God called them to do this or that. He acts like God, imitating God’s voice to you, and making you believe what he wants you to do is God’s will. This is why many people today think they were called to be missionaries or ministers, only to quit or give up the call. 
Or worst case, obtain the training and education as a minister of the Word, only to leave the faith in the end and start promoting heresy and denying their faith. The devil uses Bible passages to say what he wants you to hear out of context. Hollywood likes to use the Bible as a weapon and take passages out of context to ward off demonic creatures, fearing the sight of a cross. There is no evidence of this anywhere, and it is an assumption that the devil would shrug in fear at the cross. In reality, the devil flees at the command and power of Christ, and that is evident in Scripture (Luke 10:17; Mark 1:34; Eph 6:10-18). Due to Hollywood’s portrayal of the spiritual world, the public tends to believe what they see in movies and apply that to the Bible. They do this because they do not know Scripture; for if they knew it, they would be able to see the lies within the deception.
Many people find comfort in wearing a cross around their neck, as if it were a relic with the power to ward off demons. Please don’t buy into this lie. 
The cross was the medium through which our Lord Jesus Christ was sacrificed. It should not be a piece of jewelry to be flaunted and used in vain. The cross represents our atonement and salvation. There is no magical power or symbolism in the cross. Our Lord suffered on it till His last dying breath, so I don’t see the significance of why I would wear the cross that killed my Lord. Sure, it is a symbol of hope and love, but it is not something we are to use as a weapon against the devil. Your knowledge and trust in God’s Word are what will save you against the attacks from the dark regions. The Devil knows the Word. He hates it, but knows it is true. He uses the good things of God against you to turn that blessing into a curse. He is called the deceiver because he deceives at every opportunity. Consider all the details involved in why we do what we do, and the choices we make. Think on those details and see if they lead to glorifying Christ, or glorifying yourself? Are you being played by the devil? How long has he been playing with you? There is a way out.
