"That Ye May Be Filled with Love" | Hartman Rector Jr. | 1983

Hartman Rector Jr. teaches that in order to serve effectively, we need to learn to love others selflessly and unconditionally, as He loves us.

This speech was given on May 3, 1983.

Read the speech here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/hartman-rector-jr/ye-may-filled-love/

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https://speeches.byu.edu/speakers/hartman-rector-jr/

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"Good morning, my brothers and sisters. I consider it a privilege and an honor to greet you there this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are met in his name. I’m not sure that there is another university on the face of the earth where that could be said. You have a devotional; you meet in the name of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ loves this university. I love it, too. I love the blue and the white. I love to see the name Brigham Young, for I know that for which it stands.

I have opportunity to interview some of the faculty that teach here from time to time. Many times they are not members of the Church, but they have to agree to observe the standards of the Church, or they can’t work at Brigham Young University. I always leave them a slight challenge. After I determine they are willing to live like a Latter-day Saint, I always suggest to them, “Now, if you’re going to live like a Latter-day Saint, you ought to get credit for it. You can’t get credit for it without being baptized. So think about that.” I hope they think about it. I wish everyone would think about it.

A Chosen Generation

You here today are a chosen generation. In the words of Peter, “a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We are living today upon an earth that is dark. Perhaps just before the time of the flood was an even more difficult time to live than is today, but not much. We know that prior to the coming of the Master in his glory, the conditions will be almost exactly as they were at the time of the flood. In his own words he said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also at the coming of the Son of Man” (JS–M 1:41). That means, I presume, they will be doing the same kind of things they were doing at that time and for the same reasons. So living here upon the earth in this day and time is a very trying, difficult experience. Obviously the Lord would see fit to reserve those who had ability to withstand such temptation for this particular time. I don’t think that you are here by accident. I don’t think that, because the Prophet Joseph Smith said one time:

Every man [that is a collective term. It means woman, too. The Lord doesn’t talk much about women, you notice, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about them. Many times when he says man, he means woman too—just as the Lord said in the beginning that he created man in his own image, male and female]. Every man [and woman] who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. [Teachings, p. 365]

No, you aren’t here by accident. There is design in your being here at this time. The prophet Alma said essentially the same thing. He was talking about the ordination of certain priests, and he said:

And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.

And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works. [Alma 13:2–3]

Called because of “their exceeding faith and good works.” Now, I am presuming that that had something to do with what you did before you were born because I’ve had a number of young men that were called and ordained and set apart and sent to me as a mission president, and I am quite sure it wasn’t anything they had done since they were born that got them ordained. It’s who they were before they were born and the “foreknowledge of God.” They didn’t know what they could do, but after they arrived in the mission field, they were powerful; they found they could do all things.

Why Chosen?

Called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are..."

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