Coronam Vitæ

He was there, quiet and fulfilling his role, for at least 10 years!
In theory, the wood should outlast the flesh, but the photo doesn't lie: in practice, all it took was storing and removing a few cans, jars, bottles, and bags, plus the daylight and occasional splashes of water... for what was once rigid and intact to become worn down to the point of falling apart!

The destiny of all matter…

It's okay that the MDF It was created, being merely an imitation of wood, to keep the commercial cycle of capitalism buoyant, but coming to the conclusion that that spacious, white cabinet—whose assembly and installation are still vivid in my memory—has reached the end of its life cycle has led me to engage in deeper reflections on the many things that have been occupying my thoughts.

The first conclusion of all is that I myself, made of flesh far more fragile than even the wood chipboard, am only not in a much worse state than the destroyed cupboard because all the time and every day… I die!
From a microscopic perspective, the individual who bought and placed that piece of furniture on the wall no longer exists, as most of their cellular structure has already been renewed, while the rigidity and immutability have corroded the wood and oxidized its metals to the terminal state shown in the image.

Some will say that all of this is scientifically obvious, but I am led to question the limits of this knowledge, because if the secret to maintaining life were linked only to cellular renewal, given technological advances we should have already achieved immortality three generations ago!
However, we continue to die and, contrary to being beneficial, the large and disordered cell multiplication ends up transforming into a Cancer!

Curiously, the "goddess" called science has so far failed to present a real solution for either death or cancer beyond palliative treatments, while in the realm of fiction—comics and special effects in film—it presents us with the deformed. Deadpool as a "response" to both problems...

During this time of quarantine due to the coronavirus (and while the internet remains offline), we can witness all sorts of anxiety and absurdity being spread, and, lacking anything better to do, from here on out I'll address some of the most common themes, but I'll say upfront that death will continue without a solution until the Creator of life himself, one day, decides it's time to end it… and that leads us directly to the next topic!

SPIRITUALITY

A very dear friend made a post asking about the faith of her contacts: I thought long and hard before answering, because simply declaring my faith will make me see myself in the same group of individuals who go around trying to demonstrate that a crude faith without solid foundations will give them magical resources to escape any misfortune, even if they themselves, through their foolish actions, are the promoters and causers of evil!
I wrote in detail about the following topic in the series. Chronology, ...in four parts, but there are other conclusions reached over more than a decade of theological studies and debates that I will summarize below:

The Bible is full of passages that people like to memorize and repeat as if they were set-in stone promises, but they don't even bother to analyze the entire text, the time in which it occurred, the subject to whom it was addressed, and, above all, the reason for the event. The use of fancy terms like "exegetics" and "hermeneutics" only frightens and alienates those with less sharp minds, but I will list here a couple of these misconceptions that are often promoted from the pulpit.

And if my people,
who is called by my name,
to humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face.
and turn from your wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven,
and I will forgive their sins,
and I will heal their land.

(2ⁿᵈ Chronicles 7:14)

If the reader takes the trouble to return to the beginning of the passage and sees that this promise is part of a sequence in which Solomon and the people of Israel, in a desert setting, festively performed sacrifices of faithfulness for seven days, the Lord himself appeared to Solomon and spoke what I will transcribe below, in its entirety, apologizing for the length and asking for attention to what is underlined:

And the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him:
I heard your prayer, and I chose for myself. this place to the house of sacrifice.
If I shut up the heavens, and there is no rain;
or to command the locusts to devour the land;
or if you send pestilence among my people;
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to prayer. from this place.
For now I have chosen and sanctified. this house, so that the my name be in it perpetually;
And my eyes and my heart will be fixed on it every day.

(2ⁿᵈ Chronicles 7:12-16)

There's a following passage, up to verse 22, addressed exclusively to Solomon, which I won't go into detail about here, but I'll give you a "spoiler": he faltered... and badly!!
But focusing on the proposed text, this promise from God is directed solely and exclusively to the nation called Israel, to its people, to its geographical location, and above all, to the committed behavior of this extremely well-defined group of individuals in relation to the Lord!
Ah! — some benevolent fools will say — But that also applies to Brazil, right?!

IGNORANT BENEVOLENCE

NO!
I went to the trouble of, in addition to bolding and underlining, capitalizing the word. PERPETUALLY because it means“forevere“"That is, it characterizes an immutable condition under penalty of, in case of the slightest variation, turning God himself into a liar: the promise was not made to the United States nor to Brazil… and much less to the entire planet: forgive my extreme sincerity, but if you — whether out of fear of facing harsh reality, or out of insecurity in preaching the Truth thinking that you will scare away some more sensitive unbeliever — spread a “well-intentioned lie”, then you do not believe in the true God and are as much or worse an idolater than those who serve other gods.".

And what about us, including me?
Now, we are “branches grafted onto the vine,” and this could only happen through the ultimate sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah made a very enlightening record:

Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel:
I will add others to those already joined to him.
You,
all the animals of the field, all the animals of the woods,
Come and eat.
All Their watchmen are blind, they know nothing.;
all They are mute dogs., They cannot bark; they are asleep, lying down, and they love to sleep.
And these dogs are greedy, they can never get enough;
e They are shepherds. who understand nothing;
all they They turn to their own path, each for their own greed, each for their own part.
Come, they say, let us get wine and drink strong drink;
And tomorrow will be like today, only more abundant.

(Isaiah 56:8-12)

I particularly liked knowing that, while not specifically a sheep, I could be some animal of the field or the forest—like a gorilla or a rhinoceros of the Lord!!!—and I wish I could alter the harshness of this revelation, even more so because I have very dear friends who prefer to persist in flaunting the title of "shepherd," but the prophecy is emphatic in repeating the undoubtedly inclusive term "“ALL”"Three times, and on top of that, to define exactly who will want to dominate the non-Jews who are brought in to serve the Lord..."
Just choose a name: Malafaias, Macedos, Hernandes, Santiagos, Soares… even the owner of the gospel corner store near your house!
Ah! And the last two lines clearly express the type of message that will characterize the preaching of these dogs: Relax, just believe what I'm saying and everything will get better!

WHO IS YOUR "THE ONE"?

This statement sounds correct, but it is apocryphal and completely distorted from the original text, being frequently used by people who incur debts greater than their ability to pay and resort to this "maxim" as if it were a promise made by God himself to any stray dog!

It would be impolite—but truly curious—if every time we heard that phrase we could ask, “Who is your ‘that one’?” and certainly, knowledge of the original passage is of great value, the interpretation of which will ultimately be quite simple:

I know I am shot down, And I also know that abundance;
in every way and in all things I am instructed,
so much to have abundance, like having hunger;
both to have abundance, like the to suffer need.
I can all things in Christ that strengthens me.

(Philippians 4:12-13)

This passage, moreover, is masterfully complemented by another, even more explicit one:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
A tribulation,
or a anguish,
or a persecution,
or a hunger,
or a nudity,
or the danger,
or a sword?
As it is written:
For love of you We are delivered to death every day.;
We are reputed as sheep for the slaughter.
But in all these things We are more than conquerors., by the one who loved us.
Because I am certain that,
neither death,
neither life,
nor them angels,
nor them principalities,
nor the powers,
neither present,
neither future,
neither height,
neither depth,
nor any other creature…
(NOTHING) Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord..

(Romans 8:35-39)

The word "NOTHING" in parentheses was added by me only for the sake of better clarifying the concept presented, but allow me to proceed with a short list of things that are entirely plausible to include in this list:

— Taking on more debt than you can afford to repay.Yes, such stupidity is possible and you will be embarrassed, but worse than that is committing this irresponsibility with your eyes fixed on the sky as if you were visualizing some spirit giving confirmation and then, worthy of a beating, dragging the image of all Christians — especially evangelicals — into the mud of widespread discredit!

— Contracting coronavirusDo you think the ark fell perfectly into Noah's lap? Or that if Joseph and Mary had ignored the warning of persecution, they would have been teleported to the place where they were supposed to be for the birth of Christ?!
So, you're one of those who believes you don't need to take any preventative measures amidst this coronavirus epidemic, because the Lord has a promise for your life and will, in the same vein as some classic cartoons, be stretching and contorting himself to save you from danger?!
I hate to break it to you, but you're nothing but a... illiterate!!

Certainly, the Lord's will is sovereign, but He Himself also inspired the record that the sun shines on both the righteous and the sinners, so we can be sure that even this plague was permitted (not created!) by Him for the fulfillment of His unfathomable purposes: death, regardless of its methods, continues to be a consequence of original sin and rebellion, and so it will be until He Himself comes to put an end to this problem!

But Teóphilo... what about miracles?

The terrible pandemic may be
JUST THE PREPARATION FOR
The fulfillment of a prophecy!

THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON

Whose miracles are these?

Miracles are fractures in reality!
The Bible is full of accounts of miracles, and it's even possible to say something seemingly logical about some of them:
— Alteration of the specific density of matter: walls breached by sound, floating axe, Christ walking on water;
— Alteration of the planetary cycle: the sun (or the earth) stopped (but it is important to note that time continued to run);
— Various organic changes, instantaneous cell multiplication allowing the regeneration of specific organs…
Ultimately, miracles are the basis of what we now call "science fiction," and there's an extremely important detail about all of them: NONE remained repeating itself. through the execution of formulas or protocols!!

I'll try to be clearer using the famous episode of Moses parting the Red Sea by touching it with his staff, so well-known that it has even become the basis for many jokes:

I myself have laughed a lot at things like that, but unexpectedly I realized that the power to part the waters was NEVER Moses's... in fact, the power to part the waters was never in the staff he carried either: all the power was always contained in the Lord God himself who, omniscient and omnipotent, used figures to demonstrate his sovereignty!!
If Moses could return a month later to that exact spot where the miracle occurred and touch the water again with his staff… do you know what would happen?
NOTHING!!!

Similarly, if he had gone there before—to, say, do some training—and recreated the entire miraculous scene, the waters would continue doing what they always do in their watery, liquid role.

Perhaps my first step on the journey to becoming a genuine servant of God was recognizing that I have no power in myself and that I depend entirely on Him: by my own will I cannot perform any miracle, nor even dare to utter a sign. simple prophecy!
All the other "miracle workers" in the Bible were used and never amounted to more than paltry and momentary channels through which, in a completely empirical way, a small fraction of God's power flowed: the only person who had within himself the power to perform supernatural acts was the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, many lack the capacity to understand this and continue pursuing miracles instead of exercising faith through understanding the Word: there are so many that even ecclesiastical businesses have been created around rituals that promise miracles!
All this ritualistic behavior ends up being nothing more than pure, diabolical witchcraft, which could even be classified as blatant fraud with potentially dramatic, if not disastrous, consequences.

I write these lines thinking of two people:
My neighbor, who suffers from psychosis, lives with his mother (who is over 90 years old) and spends hours sitting by the gate watching life go by, sometimes reading the Bible… and imbued with this evangelical good faith, he went to one of those churches where the pastor called all the sick people to the front and, after a prayer, dared to say that they were cured of all their illnesses!
He, gullible to the point of being childlike, stopped taking his medication.
I had been missing seeing him, as happened almost every time I left my house, but I never imagined seeing him, this past Sunday, arriving home so emaciated and with a much more vacant stare than usual: he had spent a month in a psychiatric clinic, where he had to be taken wearing a straitjacket!
Many question whether or not a Christian can offer imprecatory prayers, but from the bottom of my heart I would very much like to see fire from heaven descending upon reckless scoundrels like that little piece of shit!
My friend whose mother died not long ago after my And now — simply by hearing the false gospel of miracles, healings, and impossible things — he is promoting a crusade of posts against something that is not, in fact, the true Creator God, but only a crude imitation built upon the fallacies commonly used by benevolent biblical ignoramuses or by leaders who want to extort money from desperate and deceived people.

There are no formulas for extracting what we want from God.
No ritual will give us the power to force Him to obey us.
We cannot bribe Him.
We cannot dissuade him from his original plans.
True prayer of faith will ultimately be the path to becoming more submissive to Him, capable of understanding His sovereign will and, even without always being able to fully comprehend it, submitting ourselves to His unfathomable designs.

FACING REALITY

If I was ever more proactive in writing texts like this, it was because I had a biased perspective that something related to divine plans could depend on me, but, as I've already said, I am fully aware that I have no power whatsoever… not even to save anyone, even if I desperately wanted to!
I honestly don't know why I dedicated myself to writing all this, but since I've come this far, I'll publish it: who knows, maybe these words can end up enlightening someone?
If it helps, please let me know.
If it doesn't work out, everything stays the same at the Abrantes barracks: be happy!

In times of quarantine, epidemic, and the Coronavirus, I would not like to enter into a debate about whether or not all of this is part of the beginning of the sorrows that precede the great tribulation, but only to highlight that the word "corona" means "crown" in Latin and, to conclude, to make a quotation in that language:

Esto fidelis usque ad mortem, et dabo tibi coronam vitae.

(Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the CROWN OF LIFE.)

(Revelation 2:10)

If even the furniture, which was made of wood and was supposed to last, met its end… who are we to want to have an eternal body?
If the crown that is now in the world is the crown of death, how many will be blessed with the determination to attain the crown of life?

May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with us, those who love and seek to serve Him, now and forever!