5 ways Satan is manipulating you - are you letting the devil guide your life?

The biggest mistake you can make with evil is underestimating its power and influence. While true evil will never be able to overcome the Lord, it is not helpless either. The devil is active and working to take over your whole life. Satan has many strongholds in the life of average Christians. It is harming them, destroying their spiritual life, contaminating the life of their family and the church. Use that fortress to fight against God and His work. Jesus himself even spoke of Satan and spoke of his power, and he wanted us to recognize how manipulative he can be. Here are some ways the devil is manipulating you and how you can stop it. Feed your ego: arrogance can creep so easily among Christians. There are a few ways you can start getting a big ego, but the most common is through success. Those who are successful, at work or at home, can forget where they originally came from. It's very easy to humble yourself when you feel like you're failing, but it's easier to take all the credit when things are going well. We forget to thank God for blessing our lives and instead focus on ourselves. This leaves room for Satan to enter. He will continue to encourage you to inflate your ego and think that you are better than others. In 1 Corinthians 8: 1-3 Paul shares that knowledge swells as love grows. We are not better than others because we are successful or informed.

Convince yourself to sin: one way that Satan will start manipulating you is to convince you that the sins are not that serious. You will start thinking things like "it will only be once", "this is not a big deal" or "no one is watching". When you give up, even if it's just once, it can start pushing you down a slippery slope. There is no way to justify actions contrary to God. Although all human beings make mistakes, it is important to be careful when we make mistakes and make sure we don't keep repeating these mistakes in the future. As a priest states, "the safest road to hell is the gradual one: the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turns, without milestones, without road signs". Telling you to wait: everything is perfect in God's times and it is important to wait for His direction. However, one way the devil can manipulate Christians is to convince them that opportunities are not slipping away. The Lord may try to talk to you and explain what He wants you to do, but you are not making any moves because Satan is telling you that it is not really a sign. Satan will tell you that you are not ready or that you are not good enough. It will feed on all the fears that hold you back. All of this causes good Christians to remain inactive and lose the momentum to achieve the goals God has set for them. Making comparisons: if you're on any social media platform, you've had a moment where you've seen someone else's lavish life and wished you had the same. You may even be looking at your neighbors to see the things they have around the house or the seemingly perfect marriage, and have felt that your life wasn't that big. You compare your professional income and status with those of your own peer group and colleagues, or think to yourself that your life sucks compared to that of your friend. We have this perception that the grass in the yard beyond the fence is much greener and better than ours, and that's all Satan is doing. He wants us to feel terrible about ourselves and our lives to be truly terrible and not worth living.

Degrading your self-esteem: many Christians have been guilty after committing a sin. Nobody likes to disappoint God. However, sometimes we can be a little too hard on ourselves. You might say to yourself, “I've already been wrong. I'm a failure, we might as well keep going since I suck anyway. “The devil wants you to hate yourself and to feel terrible for all the actions you have done. Instead of seeing yourself as God sees you with love, respect and forgiveness), Satan will tell you that you are useless, inadequate and not good enough for God. You feel discouraged and that self-pity will begin to grow. You will feel that there is no way out, that this is how things will always go and that everything is your fault. Living in a state of self-pity means that you don't need anyone to take you out of the game because you have put yourself out of the game.
Satan can sometimes creep into our life without us being aware of it. By spending time with the Lord, we understand the difference between evil and good and can more easily recognize when evil enters our life. If you don't recognize Satan's strategies, it is difficult to defeat them.