Pre-Update...

I call this a pre-update because I'm still in America. This is where I will be posting all my updates when I'm in India though. I'm posting this because some of you have asked for the blog address and I hadn't made it yet...which makes it kinda hard for me to give it to you. So much for procrastinating...anyways, here's my blog and you found it. I thought it would be kinda lame to send out the address for the blog and have nothing posted on it.

Some of you may be confused about the title of my blog, or may be worried about me because you think the title is slightly depressing or something. So...I'll explain it to you. The main text is James 4:14 "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." That is all I am. I am just one quick little vapor named Pablo, hence the title. Depressing? Not at all. Moses prays, "So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). It is much more depressing when we assume that we will live forever and waste the time that God has given us pursuing things that won't last.

When we realize how short our lives are, that our days are numbered, it allows us to focus on what we are using them for. Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" (Luke 9:23-25). The only way our lives will matter for anything at all and not be wasted is for us to first be in Jesus. While we maintain our wicked hearts (Jeremiah 17:9), we can do nothing that will matter for eternity. Our whole purpose is to glorify God and we can't possibly do this while we are dead in our sin and by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). We must first become reconciled to God through the cross. When we repent of our sin and accept God's free gift of grace by believing in Jesus, He transforms us into totally new creatures and cleans us out (I Cor. 5:17). "To the pure, all things are pure: but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled" (Titus 1:15). It is after this that we can say, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20). Any life that Christ lives through will matter for eternity.

So what does any of this have do to with me going to India? Glad you asked. Even though my life is just a little vapor, I want it to be the most glorifying little vapor that it can be. Although I'm super pumped about going to India and I'm sure I'll have lots of wonderful cultural experiences there, that is not the purpose of going. The purpose is to glorify God. More than traveling and seeing cool sights and experiencing the culture, I desire that men would be reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus. This is the ministry God has given those of us who are in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). When people are saved from Hell by turning to Jesus, it lasts for eternity. This is my desire, that if He wills, God would use my little vapor to bring souls to Himself!

I'm so thankful for all of you who love me and care about me. It is such a huge blessing to know that I've got such a wonderful group of people supporting me as I go to India. If you are in Jesus, please, please pray for me. I will need lots of prayer and I will update you so you can know how to pray specifically for me. If you're reading this and you have yet to accept God's free gift of grace, I beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God! Repent and believe the gospel! "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

I leave the States next Thursday. More to come after then.