Understanding Why We Should Be Like Christ

Have you ever had an "Aha moment" when something you had known your entire life suddenly took a deeper, clearer meaning? Maybe it isn't even one moment. Sometimes it kind of creeps along and you feel like you're grasping at straws for a little while, knowing there is something there, but being unable to catch onto it, and then suddenly you look at it and realize that it's what you knew all along, but now it makes total sense.

It's kind of like putting together a puzzle, and I have the picture on the box, but as I discover and reach for each piece and figure out how it fits it in with the other pieces, I come to realize why each piece fits where and how it does, and the completed picture has a deeper significance.

I've been having one of those grasping moments for the last several weeks.

I think it started a couple months ago when I gave a lesson in Relief Society about charity, and realized that charity isn't simply loving others, but it's loving them the same way that God loves them, because of my love for God. It was a long struggle to wrap my mind around the concept and really understand it, but I knew that it was essential that we have charity, so I felt it was important for me to really understand what it was.

A week or so ago, I came across another concept that I felt the need to understand, and was having difficulty wrapping my brain around. This one seemed completely unrelated to charity. It was about names.

When the earth was created, the scriptures say that God brought every living creature to Adam to see what he would call them, and Adam named them. (See Abraham 5:20-21) It seems like names in the Old Testament had special meanings or significance attached to them. "And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." (Moses 4:26) I assume that in the original language of Adam, the name Eve meant "the mother of all living". I remembered also that Abram's name was changed to Abraham, just as his wife Sarai's name was changed to Sarah. Their grandson Jacob had his name changed to Israel. In New Testament times, Saul had his name changed to Paul. Obviously, there was something about a person's name that had some important significance.

In a conversation with one of my sisters about a month ago, I mentioned to her that when I was a child, I was told I was a peacemaker. This was a label that I wanted to live up to, so I strove to act the way I thought a peacemaker should act. After some thought I realized that the power of a name is that it influences our perception of who we are, and how we should act.

With these thoughts in my head, I came to notice the expression "the name of Christ" in the scriptures, and realized that I didn't really understand what it meant to "take upon me the name of Christ." I spent a couple days studying and pondering what this meant. I came to realize that it means exactly what it says. When we take upon ourselves the name of Christ at baptism, we need to recognize "Christ" as our own name. In my study journal I wrote:

When the name of Christ is called, we need to answer. It means be willing to do what is needed, to serve as he would serve, to truly be like him. We are taking upon ourselves to ease one another's burdens, as he took upon himself our burdens. We become saviors on Mount Zion, just as he is. When God asks, "Whom shall I send?" we need to be prepared and willing to answer, "Here am I, send me." - not look around to see if someone else will answer first. As we go about doing good, we stand in Christ's place, acting in his name, praying, speaking, serving and blessing others as he would do if he were in our place. We become Christ's hands, extensions of him, doing his work on the earth.

Last night, I attended New Beginnings with Hannah, and as our bishop was giving some closing remarks, he handed me a couple more puzzle pieces that helped me connect this to what I had been learning before. He referred to a visiting sister who bore her testimony in church last Sunday. She is a convert and she said that in her previous church, she learned about Christ, but when she was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ, she came to know Christ. The bishop suggested that it was because in our church, we put her to work. She was serving in the church, doing the Lord's work. "For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served?" (Mosiah 5:13) As he talked about the theme for the year, (D&C 4:2) and "embark[ing] in the service of God", the bishop also encouraged the young women to try to see others as God sees them.

As I was remembering and pondering his words this morning, I realized that I had come full circle. I was back to charity. As we see others as God sees them, we will be able to love them as God loves them, and we will have the desire to serve them and help them as he has commanded us to do, and also as Christ would do if he were here. By serving them, we are taking upon ourselves the name of Christ.

We need to join the Christ family, become Christ's sons and daughters, as King Benjamin told his people to do:

And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives.

And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ. (Mosiah 5:7-9)

We can't leave the work of saving God's children all to Jesus and his atonement. We have to help all we can here and now by keeping the commandments we have been given. We need to teach our fellow man the gospel and about the atonement so they can receive those blessings. We need to do our family history so our family who has passed on can receive those blessings. When we see our brothers and sisters in the world struggling with poverty, illness, and depression, we need to do all we can to help lift their burden. Like the youth theme for the year, we need to "embark in the service of God...[and] serve him with all [our] heart, might, mind and strength, that [we] may stand blameless before God at the last day." (D&C 4:2)

Yes, I've sung the songs, "I'm Trying to be like Jesus" and "Come Follow Me" my entire life. I memorized 3 Nephi 27:27, "Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am." back when I was in seminary twenty-five years ago. I always knew we were supposed to try to follow Christ's example. But now, I am finally coming to understand what that means.