2 Sermon Illustrations on Abundant Life

In the case of the Christian, dissatisfaction as to present attainments arises, not from the circumstance that the very objects of his pursuit, like the pleasures of the world, are in themselves unsatisfactory (so that, when they are realized, they ill repay the strife and toil by which they were obtained), but that, the greater his happiness, the greater becomes his capacity for bliss. He lives above the world, and breathes the atmosphere of heaven; but, the higher he ascends, the more he regrets that he dwells so far below. He has left beneath his feet the mists of the valley, and the clouds, in their courses; peradventure, he has even gained a region where those mists and clouds seldom shut out the sunshine: but he beholds beyond him and above him heights over heights, and these he longs and intends to scale. And, while he regards his present footing but as the table-land where he may recruit himself a little for nobler enterprise, he knows, that, should he reach the highest point of all, he will but stand on the utmost boundary of an earthly planet, while worlds upon worlds will revolve beyond him in the boundlessness of space and the plenitude of celestial glory. D. E. Ford.