Take Upon Us His Name
The Savior invites us to take upon us His name by covenant and to serve Him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength.
My dear brothers and sisters, after my wife and I completed our service as mission leaders in the Philippines Antipolo Mission, our youngest daughter made a special request. She asked to complete her 11th grade through a home-school program.
My wife found an excellent school and asked me if I would stop by the registrar’s office and submit her remaining enrollment documents.
Upon arriving, I handed the paperwork to the registrar. She passed a document back, pointed to a line at the bottom, and asked me to write my daughter’s name and sign above it. However, my mind was preoccupied. I mistakenly thought she had instructed me to write my name.
With full confidence, I wrote “James Fantone” and signed. A few seconds later, I realized my error.
“Well,” I thought, “no big deal. This is an easy fix.” You see, our youngest daughter’s name is Amanda James Fantone. So I simply added “Amanda” right before my own name, and the error was quickly fixed.
Later, in a quiet moment of reflection, a profound question and a familiar scripture came to my mind. The question: What’s in a name? And the scripture, from King Benjamin: “There shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17).
Pondering this, I began to see a significant spiritual contrast between my administrative quick fix and our Savior’s sacred invitation.
The Savior’s invitation is not merely for us to add His name to our name like a badge of religious affiliation. The Savior warned, “[Some] draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Joseph Smith—History 1:19).
His invitation is for us to take upon us His name. It is an invitation to become more like Him through covenant keeping. The resurrected Lord asked, “Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name?” (3 Nephi 27:5; see also Mosiah 5:8; 6:2).
How do we, as covenant children of God, truly take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ? How does that manifest in our daily lives?
I love the simple yet profound answer taught by the prophet Moroni. He recorded that none were baptized “save they took upon them the name of Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end” (Moroni 6:3; see also Mosiah 18:13).
Taking upon us His name requires a lifelong determination to serve Him. And King Benjamin provided the divine key: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).
I was blessed to grow up in a home where serving others was taught through examples. We lived in a modest, three-bedroom bungalow—one room for me and my brother, one for our two older sisters, and one for our parents.
I distinctly remember a season when the boys’ room was not available for us to use. My mother, a public school teacher, learned that one of her recently graduated students could not pursue his vocational studies because his family could not afford housing near the school. Desiring to help him fulfill his potential, my parents opened our home and offered him the boys’ room.
During another season, it was the girls’ room that was occupied by someone else. When the Relief Society president in the ward spoke of a vulnerable family whose children desperately needed a safe place to stay, my parents, without hesitation, opened our doors, and some of the children indefinitely moved into our sisters’ room.
I believe with all my heart that if my parents had lived in Bethlehem when Joseph was searching for a place for Mary to give birth, and if by chance they knocked on our door, and if the boys’ and girls’ rooms were occupied, my parents would have gladly offered their room.
President Marion G. Romney taught this eternal truth: “Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made” (“The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance,” Liahona, Mar. 2009, 19).
I witnessed this same courageous service in our remarkable full-time missionaries.
As a mission president, I held regular interviews. In their first few months, it was not uncommon for some to sit across from me in tears and say, “President, I am so sad, lonely, and homesick. The days feel so long and time is so slow; I don’t even know if I can last for three more months.” Yet these valiant missionaries got on their knees, put on their name tags, and went out to serve anyway.
A year later those exact same missionaries would sit in my office with glowing faces and say, “President, I am so happy! I love the people, and I love this work. But time is moving too fast—I don’t want this to end!”
Every time I witnessed this transformation, I marveled. “Did time actually change?”
You and I know the answer. Time did not change—the missionaries did.
The work did not change—the workers did.
Our missionaries changed.
When we genuinely take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ by losing ourselves in the service of others, something miraculous happens. We experience what Alma the Younger referred to as a “mighty change” in our hearts (Alma 5:14)—the kind of change that leads to true conversion and not merely personal elation. King Benjamin asked this penetrating question: “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” (Mosiah 5:13).
My beloved brothers and sisters, the Savior’s invitation is not for us to merely add His name to our names. His invitation is for us to take upon us His name by covenant and to serve Him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength—by lifting, loving, and serving our fellow men.
I stand before you today as a witness of His living reality. I have made a sacred covenant to take upon myself the name of Jesus Christ, and I am determined to strive to serve Him faithfully to the end.
I testify that He lives, that this is His restored Church, and that as we lose our lives in His service, we will find Him and we will find ourselves. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.