What it means to take his name upon you

To take upon yourself the name of Christ is to reconcile yourself to your understanding of how he is.³ Taking upon you the name of Christ means learning more about what he is like and living what you learn. It is to think, feel, and act in complete and constant accordance with your understanding of God’s character. You take the Lord’s name upon yourself by reconciling your desires, beliefs, and actions to your sincere current understanding of his, and then doing all you can to learn more about him while instantaneously applying it.

The Lord commands us to be just as he and his Father are.⁴ Just as Jesus “subjected the flesh to the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:2) by assimilating the qualities his “name” described, we are called to subject our flesh to the will of the Father by taking upon us his name.

The scriptures are not ambiguous in defining “taking upon you the name of Christ” as the complete cessation of everything contrary to your understanding of God, the complete emulation of everything aligning with your understanding of God, and the totality and constancy of both:

That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you. (Alma 34:38)

There is a totality of expression in taking the name of Christ upon you that is so distant from common Christianity that it turns the idea of following the example of the Lord at all times, in all places, and in all things from being the most basic doctrine to something only an assumed extremist would consider. In reality, the idea of thinking, feeling, and doing as Jesus would in your place is so basic that it is the message of what many consider to be the very first ordinance received in the gospel: At baptism, you promise to follow Jesus’ example “at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death...that ye may have eternal life.” (Mosiah 18:9)