Becoming a Latter-Day Saint

I've decided that I am going to start something new on what this blog is actually called - Becoming LDS. In the following weeks I will be adding many more insights of characteristics or things that we can strive to become that will help us to reach our overall goal to become more like our Savior.

Some examples of things to look forward to are: to become charitable, to become clean, or to become quick to observe. I am starting out with the thing which all others fall under- we should be striving to become a saint, someone who is pure and holy, someone who is an exceptional example, someone who is a follower or a desciple of Christ. We should be striving to become perfect in Christ. We call ourselves Latter-day Saints and therefore we should be striving to become what we profess to be.

Becoming a "Latter-Day Saint"
David A. Bednar, “Clean Hands and a Pure Heart,” Ensign, Nov 2007, 80–83

"The gate of baptism leads to the strait and narrow path and to the destination of putting off the natural man and becoming a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord (See Mosiah 3:19).

Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

The purpose of our mortal journey is not merely to see the sights on earth or to expend our allotment of time on self-centered pursuits; rather, we are to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4), to become sanctified by yielding our hearts unto God (see Helaman 3:35), and to obtain “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16)...The infinite Atonement is for both the sinner and for the saint in each of us.

The requirement to put off the natural man and become a saint, to avoid and overcome bad and to do and become good, to have clean hands and a pure heart, is a recurring theme throughout the Book of Mormon. In fact, Moroni’s concluding invitation at the end of the book is a summary of this theme.

“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ. … “And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:32–33; emphasis added)."

We should be continually striving to become a Saint, to become holy without spot, and to become perfected in Christ. Then one day we may be like Him:

Moroni 7:48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.