What is the Christian life like according to the Bible?

Les teaches that if someone promises a rose-petaled pathway to those who become Christians, that is false teaching, because it has never been the theme of Scripture. The Christian life is not a matter of everything turning up roses. He likens it to paddling a canoe upstream, one of the toughest jobs on earth, and says a sissy cannot be a Christian. It is a constant battle against all the forces of Satan and the world itself. But there are promises: as believers go through times of testing and discouragement, the Lord God Himself will encourage them. Paul spoke from his own experience that as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, our consolation also abounds by Christ. The same Lord who permits persecutions and testings provides the strength needed to go through them. Early believers under the Roman yoke were immediately under persecution, and becoming a believer under Paul's preaching was an invitation to persecution, yet they shared in both sufferings and consolation.