"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7, #KJV)
People often misread that second verse as "rebuke the devil," when that couldn't be farther than the instruction given to us. We are commanded to resist the devil. According to dictionary.com, resist means to withstand the action or effect of something. We are only to resist the actions of the devil (usually in the form of temptation), not to try to go to head to head battle with him. To do so would be foolish since he is more powerful than us. The only way we can even hope to resist him is with God on our side. This is why He placed the beginning of James 4:7--it is a prerequisite for the second part. In order to even hope to resist Satan, we must submit ourselves to God.
