How Will You Answer The Lord?

Will you make The Lord proud?

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to share with you a thought about names and their importance. Think about your name. Why is it special? Why did your parents choose that name for you? Are you named after someone? What is the story behind your name? Do you know what your name means? Do you realize that your name is special?

Well I did a little research, and found out that my name means: Listener, Heard by God, God speaks to, name of God. Why does this matter to me? Because I love my name. My name is important to me, and this tells me what my name is. My name is a Hebrew name, and it tells me that I am a listener of God. Which helps me know what I should be doing and what kind of life I should be living.

Another name we should know about is our last name. Our last name is the name we carry with us for the rest of our lives. (Even if we change our last name when we get married.) Our last name helps us to find out where we came from and helps us to know where we are going, and what kind of legacy we want to leave. Our names our important.

The name we should be most concerned about is the name of Christ. When we are baptized, we take His name upon us by becoming a member of His church. When we are baptized, it is sort of like another "last name". Why? Because we are then known as "His". We take His name, and anything we do, we do to His name also. Our life will be "attached" to His name.

Mervyn B. Arnold (from the quorum of the seventy) gave a talk entitled: "What have you done with my name?"* He shared this short story:
"When President George Albert Smith was young, his deceased grandfather George A. Smith appeared to him in a dream and asked, “I would like to know what you have done with my name.” President Smith responded, “I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.”"

Someday we will be face to face with Christ, and He will ask us that same question: "What have you done with my name?" How will you answer? Will you be ashamed? Or will you make Our Savior proud of you and what you did to live up to His name and make His name a good thing in your life? "Someday each one of us will have to account to our Savior, Jesus Christ, for what we have done with His name." -Mervyn B. Arnold

Someday each of us will be faced with this question, and we will have to answer it truthfully. I know that none of us are perfect and that is why we need to use the atonement to repent so that our sins can be washed away through His atoning blood and we can be clean once more. I know that if we choose to live the life Christ would want us to live, and we use the great gift of the atonement, that we will be blessed and we will be full of joy when we can answer that question with an honest: "I have done nothing with your name of which you need be ashamed." So I leave you with this question:

How will you answer The Lord?

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Love,
Samantha
*"What have you done with my name" is a great talk. Click here to watch, listen, or read the whole talk.