There\u2019s a common, but false, idea out there which thinks that \u201cNormal\u201d in the Christian life is a life\u00a0of ease\u00a0– that it is a life of uninterrupted smooth sailing, such that if trials and difficulties comes, if failure or struggle comes, if hardship comes, then something\u2019s wrong … \u201cNormal\u201d has been interrupted, and\u00a0so we assume that we are defective and something is wrong. \u00a0But the Bible paints a far different picture of the Christian life: it is a battle, where we face great temptations and struggles. But, we are not alone in the battle. Jesus himself was tempted, and so he sympathizes with and helps those who are beset with temptation in this life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a common, but false, idea out there which thinks that \u201cNormal\u201d in the Christian life is a life\u00a0of ease\u00a0– that it is a life of uninterrupted smooth sailing, such that if trials and difficulties comes, if failure or struggle comes, if hardship comes, then something\u2019s wrong … \u201cNormal\u201d has been interrupted, and\u00a0so we assume that we are defective and something is wrong. \u00a0But the Bible paints a far different picture of the Christian life: it is a battle, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"ctc_sermon_topic":[],"ctc_sermon_book":[76],"ctc_sermon_series":[79],"ctc_sermon_speaker":[64],"ctc_sermon_tag":[],"class_list":["post-2264","ctc_sermon","type-ctc_sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ctc_sermon_book-hebrews","ctc_sermon_series-jesus-is-greater","ctc_sermon_speaker-jeff-cottone","ctfw-has-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/2264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ctc_sermon"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2344,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/2264\/revisions\/2344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_topic?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_book?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_series?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_speaker?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redeemerchurchpca.com\/NewTheme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_tag?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}