The responsibility that comes with the Name/Title
I hope all of you have enjoyed wonderful Christmas Celebrations. I know that mine was thoroughly enjoyed. We had the opportunity to talk to Puddin via the virtual world. He looked and sounded great. We hope that he is enduring the latest bouts of weather well. I look forward to hearing a report tomorrow.
Besides spending time with family and celebrating Christmas, my week was just a normal string of days without work. I don't think I will have it as easy next year, but who knows, life could change in 12 months. I did my best to keep myself occupied with activities and projects. When I was not doing something, I found myself coming back to a verse of scripture this week. 2 Nephi 31:13 This verse is packed with hours upon hours of things to ponder and think about. However, in my mind there were just a few thoughts that I kept coming back to.
First - Follow the Son.
Second - Witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism.
I did spend some time thinking about purpose, hypocrisy, deception, and intent, but my mind seemed to reflect more on these two topics.
As I thought about following the Son, Jesus, I realized that He also took upon Himself the name of Christ. He was not born Jesus the Christ. His given name was Jesus. He witnessed through His life to the Father that He was willing to take the name of Christ.
Christ is a title, meaning - the anointed. It is something that is earned, trained for, and/or even pursued. Typically, we read the verse and immediately think of baptism by water, but I think that most of us are already there. The baptism that I was drawn to was that of the Holy Ghost. I have come to believe that it is this baptism that prepares for carrying the name of Christ. He leads us to the temple where such ordinances worthy of such a title are administered.
So, how do we take upon us the name of Christ? It goes back to the first point of thought, following the Son. In my pondering, I looked up all the different names of Christ in the Bible dictionary and learned that I have so much to do. The list is crazy long, but here are just a few that impressed upon me what it means to take upon us the name of Christ:
Prince of Peace - being a peacemaker, not a source of contention.
Servant of the Lord - servant is the key word here. How can we serve better?
the Messenger of the covenant - missionary work, teaching others about the covenant/testaments of God
the carpenter’s son/carpenter - being a son of a mortal father as well as one of an eternal father. Becoming
a Nazarene - a covenant keeper
Son of the Highest - this one is repeated several times in several fashions. It must be very important!
one with the Father - conforming to His will
God’s anointed - I think immediately of the temple
a teacher come from God - missionary work
meek and lowly - I have work to do here
Rabbi - means to be a teacher.
the Word - we must know the word, to become the Word
the Light - we must shine
the bread of life - be willing to feed the soul, temporally as well as spiritually
the good shepherd - we must lead
a prince/ss - we must recognize and know our royal birth right
the spiritual rock - again baptism of the Holy Ghost
hath an unchangeable priesthood - message for today's world
learned obedience by the things which he suffered - how we learn many times
the same yesterday, today, and forever - we must be consistent and committed to who we are
The faithful witness -we must be willing to be a witness at all times
Besides spending time with family and celebrating Christmas, my week was just a normal string of days without work. I don't think I will have it as easy next year, but who knows, life could change in 12 months. I did my best to keep myself occupied with activities and projects. When I was not doing something, I found myself coming back to a verse of scripture this week. 2 Nephi 31:13 This verse is packed with hours upon hours of things to ponder and think about. However, in my mind there were just a few thoughts that I kept coming back to.
First - Follow the Son.
Second - Witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism.
I did spend some time thinking about purpose, hypocrisy, deception, and intent, but my mind seemed to reflect more on these two topics.
As I thought about following the Son, Jesus, I realized that He also took upon Himself the name of Christ. He was not born Jesus the Christ. His given name was Jesus. He witnessed through His life to the Father that He was willing to take the name of Christ.
Christ is a title, meaning - the anointed. It is something that is earned, trained for, and/or even pursued. Typically, we read the verse and immediately think of baptism by water, but I think that most of us are already there. The baptism that I was drawn to was that of the Holy Ghost. I have come to believe that it is this baptism that prepares for carrying the name of Christ. He leads us to the temple where such ordinances worthy of such a title are administered.
So, how do we take upon us the name of Christ? It goes back to the first point of thought, following the Son. In my pondering, I looked up all the different names of Christ in the Bible dictionary and learned that I have so much to do. The list is crazy long, but here are just a few that impressed upon me what it means to take upon us the name of Christ:
the Prophet - by following the Prophet, we are able to become more Christlike.
Everlasting Father - learning to be a Father, like our Father in Heaven.
Prince of Peace - being a peacemaker, not a source of contention.
Servant of the Lord - servant is the key word here. How can we serve better?
the Messenger of the covenant - missionary work, teaching others about the covenant/testaments of God
the carpenter’s son/carpenter - being a son of a mortal father as well as one of an eternal father. Becoming
like that father, a carpenter or builder of the kingdom.
a Nazarene - a covenant keeper
Son of the Highest - this one is repeated several times in several fashions. It must be very important!
one with the Father - conforming to His will
God’s anointed - I think immediately of the temple
a teacher come from God - missionary work
meek and lowly - I have work to do here
Rabbi - means to be a teacher.
the Word - we must know the word, to become the Word
the Light - we must shine
the bread of life - be willing to feed the soul, temporally as well as spiritually
the good shepherd - we must lead
a prince/ss - we must recognize and know our royal birth right
the spiritual rock - again baptism of the Holy Ghost
hath an unchangeable priesthood - message for today's world
learned obedience by the things which he suffered - how we learn many times
the same yesterday, today, and forever - we must be consistent and committed to who we are
The faithful witness -we must be willing to be a witness at all times
OK, that was more than a few. I am sure there are more that we could learn from. Each of these in and of themselves is hours and hours of pondering and improvements.
I hope that each of us will strive to follow the Son and take upon us the name of Christ as He did. That one day we may become such as He.
There you go. Food for thought.
Everyone else has been busy this week.
The Queen worked most of the week. She sweating until the last minute as to whether she would get off for the holidays, but was able to enjoy most of it off. I don't know how she did it, but she did most if not all preparation for the season while working. It has been kind of strange not to have time off with her during this week.
The Professor worked through Tuesday and then scrambled to wrap up those last minute items for the holidays. She is so looking forward to the time off next week.
Tall Man worked most of the week as well. When he was not working, he spent hours and hours driving between the West side Outback and the West side as we know it. This week he goes back to work, prepares to move, and will start his new job on the 4th.
SnackPack has been spending what he calls "his last days on earth" with friends. There were still several choir performances and he was pleased to have visitors from the Great North. Next week, he will be having his wisdom teeth removed, which could kill him by the way, hence "his last days on earth". We will let you know how it goes.
We will miss updates from the North Country, but look forward to hearing of new adventures as they begin.
We love you all. Have a great week!
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