The place where the enemy attacks you first is in your mind. He wants to create negative strongholds in your thoughts. If you allow the enemy to create strongholds in you, the devil can control you.
Negative thoughts from the devil are: You will never succeed, you are not good enough, and you will never overcome this sin or problem. Look at your dreadful past experiences! You have never succeeded in this before, and it will not be any different now. Or, it doesn’t matter if you sin, you get grace anyway.
Two thoughts of doubt from the devil are: Are you? And: Did God really say?

Are you?
When Jesus was tempted in the desert, the devil said: Are you really the Son of God, then throw yourself down from there (Matthew 4:6). He tried to place a thought of doubt into Jesus’ mind.
The devil uses the same tactic today, by saying: If you really are a Christian you have to pray more, or you would not have bad thoughts.
He tries to create a negative image of God. The devil always tries to say that you should have done this, and you have to do that to satisfy God.
If the devil tries to attack you with this thought, confess who you are in Christ; you are his son or his daughter (E.g. read Rom 8).
If you have received Christ in your life, you are a son or a daughter of God, and you don’t have to fulfill a lot of demands to be a child of God. You are born into it!
In reading about the prodigal son in Luke 15, we see that both sons failed to identify themselves as sons. The one that had squandered his entire heritage felt condemnation for all the bad things he had done, and thought that his father would not look at him as a son any longer. The son that had been home all the time, did not identify himself as a son either, but as a servant. When his brother came home he said:
Luke 15:29-32
`Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
31" `My son,' the father said, `you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

Notice how the oldest son says “This son of yours”, not my brother. He had an identity problem too; he thought that he had to do something to earn his father’s love.
You don’t need to do anything to please God, but the devil loves to trick you into believing that you have to fulfill demands for yourself and for others, making you legalistic.

Did God really say?
The devil wishes to sew doubt about what God has called you to. I know that God has a calling over your life! Has the devil robbed you from having hopes and visions for the future?
The devil tries to give you the same thoughts of doubt that the snake gave to Eve: Did God really say? For example today it can be: Did God really call you into mission?

Condemnation

One of the best weapons the devil has is self-condemnation. If he can get you into condemnation, you will become weak and powerless. After taking a challenge in your Christian walk, the enemy will soon arrive and try to get you in the same old position as before. It is when you are taking new challenges that you really discover that you are in a war.

• Condemnation comes because of lack of knowledge about who God is.
  

In Matthew 14:25-32 talks about Peter walking on water. He had literally taken a step in faith, on a word that Jesus spoke. But then, a thought of doubt came into his mind. He started to look at the circumstances, taking his focus away from Jesus and so he started to sink.
This is the fist strategy of the devil when you take a new step in faith; to be more focused on the circumstances and problems than on God. He also gives you more temptation. The next step he does is to condemn you for not having your focus on God and to fall. He sometimes says: I thought you were strong now, but you are no better than before, this has not been a breakthrough, everything is still the same. You can’t count on God anymore!
When thoughts like this come, you should go to the Bible and see what it says.
When looking at this story about Peter, you can see that Jesus doesn’t reject Peter in spite of his unbelief, but he stretches out his hand and helps him. God wants to do the same thing in your unbelief.

• The more you know about God’s character, the more equipped you are to resist attacks from the enemy.
  

Matt 14:25-32
25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. don’t be afraid."
28"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29"Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
32And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

Bad experience

There is another way the devil sows the thoughts of doubt in your mind, he uses your bad experiences against you.
For instance, after having prayed for a sick person in faith while believing for a healing, but nothing happens. You pray for another one, and still nothing happens. After this experience, you will be attacked with thoughts such as: Do you remember the last time you prayed for the sick and nothing happened? Well, healing won't happen this time either.
After an experience like you this, you may fall into another trap: It was possibly not the will of God.

• Many times you don't get answers to your prayer because you are impatient, wishing the answers would happen instantly.
  
• The word of God always speaks the truth, your experience doesn't.
  

After the Exodus, God tested the Israelites by leading them through the desert. While there, they encountered a lot of problems. One of the first was the lack of food.

Exodus 16:2-3
2In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

The Israelites stayed very focused on the past; in spite of all the miracles they had witnessed when they were delivered from the Egyptians. Even though bread fell from heaven as an answer to prayer, the Israelites still lacked faith when they met the next problem.
As a Christian you will meet resistance, especially when you decide to do something for God. Whenever you face problems but focus more on the problems and the past experiences than on God, your dreams and vision will soon be gone, giving the devil a victory.

1 Cor 10:6
Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did

Endure

Endurance is a very important thing in spiritual warfare. Western society is used to instant things, expecting everything to happen fast. But, the kingdom of God is very different. When you read in the Bible about Abraham, Joseph and David, you see that the promises God gave to them were not fulfilled on the same day. In some cases, it took decades before they saw them fulfilled.
The person who endured the most was probably Jesus, who you need to have as your role model.

Heb 12:1-3
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

These verses contain many keys on how to win a victory in battle. First of all, when you have many witnesses that God has used and raised up, put away your burden and the sin that entangles you. I don’t know if you have noticed, but sin and worry hinders our fight and makes us ineffective in battle. You have to put this behind you so you can run the race ahead of you with perseverance. Perseverance itself can even become a big battle, that’s why the author of Hebrews writes: Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
The strategy of the enemy is to always get your attention away from Jesus. The more you see who Jesus is, the stronger your faith will become, because faith starts with Jesus, He is the founder.
Jesus had joy ahead of him and he continued to have the right focus, despite the difficult circumstances of pain and suffering. This led Jesus to victory, he knew the joy would come later and he held on.
When you have great battles it is very easy to be faint-hearted and lose courage. It is easy to think: I really want to give up now; I can’t fight this any longer. I have said this sometimes myself. I remember a team I led on an outreach. I really had a hard time, and at one point I almost had the whole team against me, and I knew that part of it was because of one big mistake I made. It felt like hell was letting loose on me. I was almost drowning in self-condemnation and frustration and I also felt that the situation was very unfair. I could almost hear the demons whispering and mocking: “You can’t get out of this one!” “Now you should laugh, be glad.” However, in this situation, I actually felt the presence of God, in a supernatural way with His grace upon me. Even though it was hard, I got my focus away from the circumstances and back upon Jesus and the problem eventually diminished.
In this situation, I really wanted to give up everything - my ministry, my dreams and hopes - but the grace and power of God saved me. Jesus had to go through something that was a hundred times worse than my situation, and he won a victory. I am glad that he won that victory, because he won it for me, that’s why it is so important to consider Him, and how much opposition He endured.

Because of impatience, you give the devil an opportunity to attack, filling you with fear and despair. When you are impatient, you are not trusting God.
Is 28:16
So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

Fear is from the devil, but perfect love drives out fear.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.