How To Avoid Temptations

The only way to avoid temptations is to ... make a alliance with the devil!  Why are you smiling?  You don't like this solution?

Look, let me explain.
As long as someone is struggling, there will be temptations and difficulties.  And the more one tries to avoid temptation, the more contrary the devil becomes.  But through temptations – if we use them correctly – we are given the opportunity to make our life, which sometimes is anti-evangelica, "evangelical.

Elder Paisios of Mount Athos