Does the life of a believer have to be difficult?

When we choose to live life God’s way, using all of God’s resources, life will be easy. If we choose to go use our own resources to try to live God's way life will be extremely difficult. Notice: Jesus said, “take my yoke upon you … for my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:29, 30). But when we choose to live life our way, it will always be difficult and impossible to live according to God's will because we will be fighting against the culture of this world (the lies and deceptions that Satan uses to enslave us), the desires of our flesh (the lusts of our eyes and heart, and the pride of life}.

Look at these bold statements God has made about the Christian Life:

“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, Yehovah your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). 
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)

Excerpts from Ephesians 1:3-23

God has given us every spiritual blessing in His anointed one
God has chosen us to be holy and blameless in His sight
God marked us out beforehand us to be His children
God has freely given us His glorious grace and has lavished on us His redemption from slavery to sin and forgiveness of ALL our sins

God has given us the wisdom and understanding to know the mystery of His will
God will work out everything in our lives in conformity with the purpose of His will
God expects our lives to result in the praise of His glory
God has given us the Holy Spirit, which is a seal and deposit guaranteeing our inheritance
God gives us wisdom and revelation through the scriptures so that we will know him better
God enlightens our hearts so that we know: a) the hope He has called us to, b) the riches of our glorious inheritance, c) His incomparably great power

God’s power available to us is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised His anointed one from the dead and seated him at His right hand in heaven
God fills us with the fullness of His anointed one and Himself in every way

The key to living a Christian life that is not a difficult struggle lies in “whom we will obey”. Will we obey what the world tells us to do? Will we obey what our pride and flesh tells us to do? Will we obey what God tells us to do? And this is what God has told us through His son:  Hear, O Israel; Yehovah our God is one Lord: And you shall love Yehovah your God with all thy heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, you shalt love your neighbour as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these - Mark 12:29-31. These words sum up the creed of the lord Jesus and as such we are to obey his creed as his slaves bought and paid for by his shed blood. The creed of Jesus can only be kept by those who have fully committed to His God and His Father Yehovah. His creed can only be kept by us exercising the fullness of the Spirit of God and His son indwelling us and have that power enabling us to do what his creed requires. Without the enabling power of the indwelling presence of God and His son it will be impossible to keep the creed of the lord Messiah Jesus! Impossible. 

We struggle and fail to live up to God’s expectations in our lives because we don’t really believe the revelation He has give us in the scriptures. We don't believe God as Abraham did and in doing so was considered righteous. We have not immersed our minds with everything that God has said to guide and direct us. As a result, we don’t have God’s wisdom, understanding to know and obey His will every day. We need to submit to and allow God's Spirit to renew our minds and hearts so we can indeed live out His will for us every day.

We struggle and we fail because we “love the world” and “love ourselves”. We have not come to realize that when we were baptised we walked into the water to the death of self. Self always brings about sin in our lives. Realize that as we are the slaves of the lord Jesus there is no self anymore. Slaves are not to exercise any self will, but are to carry out the will of their master which in our case is the lord Jesus, God's anointed one. When we were baptised we were crucified with God's anointed one and now we are to live our live as God's anointed one indwelling us, would have us to do.

We need to open our eyes to the needs of our neighbours and then ask God how he wants us to meet those needs. When the focus of our lives is on loving our neighbours as ourselves according to Jesus creed our minds will not attracted by the ways of this world, we will crucify the desires of our flesh and learn to walk in step with the Spirit of God and of His son Jesus. (Galatians 5:24, 25)