I received a Facebook friend request from someone who sounded familiar. Turns out she didn’t know me and subsequently apologised and then asked, “Are you born again?”

But I hardly know you woman … what a blunt question. I kinda felt offended by it.

After a few curt message exchanges, I found out that she saw a pic of me from the recent Northfield musical with a massively-lit cross in the background, and hence her question.

Now, this whole “born again” vibe grinds my turkey to some degree.

As a Christian myself and someone who believes wholeheartedly in my own salvation and redemption, I find the use of the language “born again” intriguing, cryptic and sometimes offensive (when used by certain types of Christians).

I guess it’s not part of my every language and discourse as a believer in- and follower of Christ.

Sure, Jesus reckons (in John 3) that in order for us to really understand the Kingdom of God we must be born again (or, “born from above”).

But what does that really mean? Really, what does it mean to be born again?

(I can already hear the Born-Again-Pundits questioning my own born again status because of this line of questioning).

One cannot be born twice, literally. But, I guess one can, through the work of the Holy Spirit, “re-enter” (or re-engage) this world with a different perspective, life and mind. It’s a second birth of sorts. Where we begin to see this world not for what is physically in front of us, but rather see it in eternal and spiritual terms.

For me, my second birth was not an event. In fact I experience it as a continual birthing process where I’m wrestling with my nature as a human being – I’m always in a state of tension between my selfish human nature and the bigger picture of God in my life.

A significant experience in my second birth journey was being baptised in the River Jordan, not too far from where Jesus was probably baptised by John the Baptist.

But before I get too carried away, I’ve been wrestling lately with a different phrase … “second death”.

The New Testament scriptures are littered with references to how we must put our selfish nature, our flesh, our human side to death in order to follow and understand Christ.

We must die to ourselves.

Now, we can only die once. In the same light of a second birth, our first death is about us relinquishing our lives we we know them in subservience to Jesus.

This is the most difficult part of Christian living – and it is when we fail to do this that the world rightly accuses and criticizes us.

Is a “first death” not a prerequisite to being “born again”.

This is why I believe my second birth is a process, not an event. I HAVE TO die to myself daily in order to walk and live in the life of God. And so, my first death is a continuous choice … a suicide of sorts.

This means that when we die, the extinction of our life on earth, it is a second death, not the first.

But for those who have not given their lives to Jesus, it is a first and only death.

I’d like to believe that when a Christian dies, the Christ-following community understands that this death was not the first, and that it is a transition point to a new life. It is not THE end.

This was my sense at Barry Marshall’s funeral in September, and I hope it is what my family, friends and church-community sense at my own funeral one day.

I want to live a life that honours my second birth, making it real and worthy.