Everyone wants to live the abundant life. Finding it is a difficult road, fighting against self, but it is found in Jesus. If you want love, joy and peace to consistently, I have found the quote below the quickest path to this life. Outside the bible, it is a passage that shapes you into Jesus. It will take time, but even after a week I began to see changes, and I am not the only one.
The Father’s presence encircled Christ, and nothing befell Him but that which infinite love permitted for the blessing of the world. Here was His source of comfort, and it is for us. He who is imbued with the Spirit of Christ abides in Christ. The blow that is aimed at him falls upon the Saviour, who surrounds him with His presence. Whatever comes to him comes from Christ. He has no need to resist evil, for Christ is his defense. Nothing can touch him except by our Lord’s permission, and “all things” that are permitted “work together for good to them that love God.” Romans 8:28.
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, page 71
The above quote was written by Ellen White in 1896, commentating on the Bible verse Matthew “Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”—Matthew 5:39, R. V.
Below is the story as quoted by the book, “Adventist’s Greatest Need” by Ron E. M. Clouzet, Chapter 6.
Frank Phillips, a pastor and missionary whose teachings are surfacing now, a generation after his death, used to tell of an experience he once heard from a young wife and mother, while at camp meeting. As I recall, she came to him for counsel. Her marriage was in shambles. Her husband was an unbeliever, irresponsible, drank too much, and cared nothing for the family. She had a little girl and a boy five months old. They had tried counseling, but nothing helped. Tired, she was ready to throw in the towel.
“Are you willing to do whatever is necessary to save your marriage?” asked the pastor. She paused for a moment, thinking she already had.
“Yes, I think I am,” she replied.
“Then, take the statement on this card with you. Read it, think about it, and pray over it. And if you choose to follow through with it, God will heal your marriage.”
The pastor prayed with her, and she left. The card contained a statement from the little book Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing:
“The Father’s presence encircled Christ, and nothing befell Him but that which infinite love permitted for the blessing of the world. Here was His source of comfort, and it is for us. He who is imbued with the Spirit of Christ abides in Christ. The blow that is aimed at him falls upon the Saviour, who surrounds him with His presence. Whatever comes to him comes from Christ. He has no need to resist evil, for Christ is his defense. Nothing can touch him except by our Lord’s permission, and ‘all things’ that are permitted ‘work together for good to them that love God.’ Romans 8:28.”
You will probably need to read it again. First of all, the Father encircled Christ, the same concept we’ve visualized Christ doing in our lives. He is in us, and we are in Him. In other words, we’re completely surrounded with Jesus. Next, nothing happened to Christ but what His Father allowed for the blessing of the world. This was not only His source of comfort but also must be ours. That is why we need not resist evil. Christ didn’t. Nothing can touch us except by our Lord’s permission, and whatever evil does reach us will work together for good. OK—easier said than done, right?
The woman read it, prayed over it, and made the decision she would live by what it said. If a miserable home life was her lot, she would not only accept it, she would embrace it, knowing that Christ had already filtered that on her behalf. Did she make it?
The first three months after she began to thank God for those things that she’d naturally despise or wish would not be there, her marriage and husband seemed to grow worse, not better. In a crucible that called her daily to be on her knees long and often, she chose to acknowledge that Jesus was at work, when it seemed ever so clear that Satan was in control. But she kept at it, believing that she was surrounded by Jesus and that He had the power to filter anything touching her life. Suddenly, things began to change. Her husband stopped drinking, he held on to a job, became interested in the family, and helped with the kids. He even began to do things for her he’d never done before. He would spend time just with her every evening: a walk, a ride, a trip to the ice cream store. She could not believe what was happening to him. Oh, how he had changed!
Thanking God for this development became much easier than before. She felt things couldn’t be better. Then one night, while her mother-in-law watched the children, they went on a nice ride together. The grandmother put the now-eleven-month-old baby to sleep and sat down to take a nap, leaving her medicine uncapped, over on the counter. The boy woke up and managed to crawl out of his crib. He reached grandmother’s pills and swallowed every one of them. After a few minutes, he lay dying on the floor. When the grandmother woke up and saw what happened due to her neglect, she literally froze to her chair. She couldn’t even scream for help, being in total shock.
When the parents arrived, they grabbed the toddler and rushed him to the hospital. But he died only an hour later. How could this possibly be? From bliss to utter tragedy in one hour. The husband couldn’t take it, and he disappeared. The in-laws also wanted to die. The woman, alone and desperate, cried to God: “How can I accept this as if coming from You, God? Where were You at the time? This is the work of the devil, just when things were going so well!” So she let go of the conviction that God was in control of her life. But she noticed that this made things worse. After three weeks, she was depressed, alone, and broken-hearted.
One afternoon, she saw someone from church pulling up in her driveway to visit her. Every visit was the same thing: People commiserated with her loss, but that only helped keep the focus on the tragedy.
As she headed to the door, the Spirit impressed her: “Did you not promise Me you would take everything that happened to you as if coming from My hand?” Convicted, she wept, “Yes, Lord, I did. Please forgive me. I don’t understand, and this hurts so much, but I surrender even the death of my boy to You. I choose to believe You were there when it happened and allowed it in Your infinite wisdom.” This entire encounter lasted just seconds.
Opening the door, she put her hand up and said, “Please, don’t say anything. I need to surrender all to Jesus right now. Would you kneel and pray with me so I can do that?” Three weeks after the baby’s death, her husband returned. He had gone to hell and back. He told her he was sorry he’d left in their hour of greatest need but that he realized he needed desperately to know God the way she did. He was done with his life, he told her, and wanted to turn it over to Christ. Days later, the in-laws came for a visit. They acknowledged that many years ago, they had once been Adventists but had left the church. They didn’t raise their boy in the faith. But they saw that she seemed to know God personally—that she was the most Christlike person they’d ever known—and they needed her help to come back to God.
The young woman may not know why her baby died or why it happened under such tragic circumstances. But she knows she will see him when Jesus comes again. And she now knows her husband and whole family will be there, as well.
I first heard the story twenty years ago, and was amazed, but it never went further than that, because I read the quote once, and never memorised it and meditated on it daily.
Fast forward to a year ago, I discovered one can easily memorise any words, by putting them to music. I put the whole Bible book of Philippians to music, each verse a different tune. In 2025, I put this quote to music, and then meditated on it every day. Every time I felt wronged, I would sing the quote and meditate on it, and Jesus would slowly change me. Everyone who knows me and testify that I am a different person, especially my wife.