Okay, this is a long one - and I've cut some of the more personal parts out so it may be a bit choppy....

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I’ve always wanted a niche. My friends all have them. Olivia’s is holiness. Matthew’s is politics. Noah’s is dolphins. This list could go on but the point remains…I don’t have one. I am thinking that maybe my niche can be life. Ya, I like that – life – that’s a pretty good niche to have! After all the last four digits of my phone number spell LIFE and I do have these sweet tattoos on my forearms that say ‘life’. They also say death, but the death part of this “book” will come later.

Okay, I guess the death part will come now. Another reason why I think my niche should be life is because I was supposed to die. I was an unplanned pregnancy and my mom had considered aborting me, but never went through with it, so even though I have been assigned death from the moment I was conceived, in my mere existence I am giving the devil the finger. However this assignment of death didn’t stop at the womb. Upon delivery my mom had to go an emergency c-section to save my life and in my teens I thought of taking my own life once or twice. But death didn’t get me there.

It’s kind of ironic that I am writing a “book” on life at the time I am, because this assignment of death is still at large, and worse I am letting him win. A few months ago I had my first personal encounter with a demon. I was sitting in my bed and a boney arm came over my shoulder and gave me a ‘friendly’ little tap. I felt very cold as he said to me “you are mine.” It wasn’t until a couple weeks later I shared this experience with someone and they discerned it was an assignment of death and paralleled it to Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones.

Jesus had an assignment of death over his life too. King Herod was on mission to search for Jesus and to kill him. What saved Jesus? Or better question – who saved Jesus? The answer is in Matthew 2:13-23.

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Matthew 2:13

Then it goes on to say that Jesus’ parents left Egypt. And that Herod was very angry and he sent soldiers to kill all the young boys in and around Bethlehem. When Herod died an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph again and said that it was safe to return because those who wanted to kill Jesus are dead.

So who saved Jesus? The answer is two fold. 1) The Lord appeared to Joseph (Jesus’ daddy) in a dream and 2) His parents obeyed the Lord. Only the Lord can save. This is true for our lives. The Lord is the only one with ability to save us, with the ability to rescue us from an assignment of death. I was thinking of a way to explain this better, but there really is no need for it. It is a simple truth – the Lord is our saviour. I’m going to devote a whole chapter to spiritual parents and that is when I will explain the second point further.

Around the same time as my demon encounter I wrote a song, in the key of A minor for that emo feel, called ‘death unwritten’.

What is going on? What the hell am I doing?
Is there anybody there? Is there anybody there?
When will my misery end? And when will glory come?
Is there anyone who cares? Anyone who cares?

Life is death. Life is death. Life is death. Death unwritten.

In my brokenness I cry. And in my loneliness I die.
Hey can you hear me? Can you hear me?
In my brokenness I cry. And in my loneliness I die.
Hey can you hear me? (Cue screamers and guitar distortion)
CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Life is death. Life is death. Life is death. Death unwritten.

At first I thought I was singing in my self-pity but the more I sang it and the more revelation I got, the more I think that life is death. Look back to the picture of my tattoos. One arm says death and the other says life. If you look closer you will realise that they are actually the same tattoo only flipped 180 degrees. This tattoo is the image of “life is death”. (I actually only made reference to my tattoo’s because I wanted you to think I was cool)

The book of Romans zero’s in on this life is death policy.

Well then, should we keep on, sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may have new lives. Romans 6:1-4

And verse five really explains it well.

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.

So does verse eight.

And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.

And eleven.

So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Actually the whole chapter is pretty rad, take a moment now and read it yourself.

As I write this Heather Clark’s song based on the text from Romans 12 came on my iTunes.

I beseech you, therefore brethren, in view of the mercies of God,
To present yourself as a living sacrifice.

Another nice example of death is life. Our bodies are to be presented as a living (Zoë life) sacrifice (death).

So life is death. We cannot fully live until we have fully died. We need to die to ourselves to that we can live in Him. It is by dying to sin we are saying no to death. When we say no to death we are saying yes to life. This is pretty bizarre, I am writing a book on life, yet I am telling you to die.

How do we die to ourselves then? Good question! When you figure out the answer fire me off an email, nicolebrindle@gmail.com, and maybe I will write another fake book on that! While you are sending me an email, add me to facebook too! These are my bad writing skills at their finest, I’m getting off topic. Where was I? Right, how do we die to ourselves? I have a friend who likes to preach on the Allister Smith two-canary illustration. The illustration is as follows: we are like a bird cage with two canaries in it, a good canary and a bad canary. The process of dying to ourselves is merely an exercise in starving the one and feeding the other. My friend’s climax point is “don’t just starve the bad canary - wring its neck and throw it out of the cage!”

I’m going to take a moment and piggy back on Stephen’s climax. What does your bad canary represent? Addiction, fear, pain? Sickness, pride, money? Well, wring its neck and throw it out of the cage!