The Bible tells us that earthly fatherhood is derived from divine fatherhood. The apostle Paul bows his knee before the Father, “from whom every family [literally fatherhood] in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:15). One implication of this basic fact is that earthly parents are to imitate the fatherhood of God. He is the model for our own fathering (and mothering).

In considering God’s fatherhood, parents do well to reflect on the relationships and rules he established in the garden of Eden, and especially on how he uses yes and no.

God’s World of Yes

Recall that God planted the garden in Eden and filled it with trees that were pleasant to the sight and good for food (Genesis 2:9). Then he put the man in the garden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15), assigning him a priestly guardianship of God’s garden sanctuary. And then God gave to Adam the moral design of this garden:

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16–17)

Note three features of the rules God established in the garden. First, there was one no in a world of yes. Second, the yes came first. And third, the no was real.

All three of these features are crucial. God did not create a world of no, filled with prohibitions and restraints. He made a world of yes and gave it his enthusiastic endorsement. God provided Adam with a garden of delights, filled with beautiful trees and tasty fruit, and his first rule was “Eat from every tree (except one).” There is one no in this world of yes. For our purposes, let’s call this “The Father’s Way.”

Learning Parenting from Lies

We see the significance of the Father’s Way when the serpent assaults it. The serpent’s first question is “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). In other words, the serpent asks, “Did God make a world of no?” In doing so, the serpent shrewdly turns the single prohibition into a total prohibition. He turns the one no into a world of no. This assault on the Father’s Way is why Paul describes those who forbid marriage and require abstinence from God’s good foods as liars who are devoted to the teaching of demons (1 Timothy 4:1–5).

At the same time, we must not forget that there was in fact a no. The serpent also assaults this aspect of the Father’s Way. When Eve rightly notes that there is only one no in the world of yes and that violation of the one no will lead to certain death, the serpent replies, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Whereas the serpent formerly blew the single no out of proportion, now he shrinks the real consequence out of existence.

In sum, the serpent sought to depict God as a miser who makes idle threats. But our Father is not a miser who makes idle threats; he’s a giver who always follows through. That’s the Father’s Way. So what might moms and dads learn from God’s good design in the garden? How might we seek to imitate the Father’s Way?

Lesson 1: Limit Your Noes

First, it is good and right for us to limit the number of noes we place on our kids. While we will surely need more than one (after all, we do live in a fallen world), it’s noteworthy that the foundation of Israel’s life was the Ten Commandments, and that in the New Testament, Jesus captures the Ten with Two: love God with all you have, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–39).

In each of these cases, the noes are limited and focused on the big things. One way to apply this approach is to ask yourself, “What rules must my children always remember?” In our home, following the advice of some wiser friends, early on we established two basic rules:

Always obey Mom and Dad — all the way, right away, with a happy heart.
Always tell the truth.

As our kids grew in maturity, we added a third: Treat others the way that you want to be treated.

Now, clearly the first rule encompasses a lot. Every day as parents, we give instructions, commands, and expectations to our kids. But we don’t expect them to memorize every instruction, every house rule, every command that we’ve ever mentioned. Instead, we expect full, immediate, and cheerful obedience when the instructions come.

POINT OF PARENTING

Fewer rules puts the accent in the right place. The moral order of your home, like the moral order of the garden, is fundamentally about trust and relationship. The fundamental thing that we are asking of our children is this: trust the goodness and wisdom of your parents, and express that trust through full, immediate, and cheerful obedience. Having fewer (and wiser) rules orients them to the right issue.

“The moral order of your home, like the moral order of the garden, is fundamentally about trust and relationship.”

Having fewer rules also reorients parents. A small number of good rules keeps us out of the “If I’ve told you once . . .” trap — expecting children to remember every rule that we’ve ever laid down for them. “Billy, why are you standing on your chair? Didn’t I tell you last month never to stand on your chair?” We become frustrated when we have to remind and correct and exhort our children concerning all of the various house rules (and basic courtesies of life). This fundamentally misses the point of parenting.

Teaching, correcting, instructing, reminding — these are the basics of the Father’s Way. This is what we as parents are called to do, and we must do so all the way, right away, with a happy heart.

PARENTING HAPPINESS

To press on this practically, let’s say that Billy stands up on his chair at the dinner table (again). The first step is instruction and a reminder. “Billy, we don’t stand up in our chair at the dinner table.” If he sits down, all is well. But sometimes Billy gives you a look that says, “Who’s going to make me?” In that situation, we move to discipline — not for standing up on the chair, but for open defiance. Billy has broken rule number 1, and there must be consequences.

Or perhaps Billy bounces on the chair for a moment, and then sits down. Or he sits down with folded arms and a scowl on his face. In other words, Billy obeyed, but not “all the way, right away, with a happy heart.” This is an opportunity for further teaching and practice. Remind Billy of the full rule, and then have him stand back up in the chair. Give the command again, and watch for full, immediate, and cheerful obedience. And if you receive it, lavish praise and excitement because Billy has preserved the relationship of trust and joy by responding rightly to the Father’s Way.

Lesson 2: Say No to Protect Good

In addition to limiting the number of rules we expect our children to remember, we might also consider how the Father’s Way uses prohibitions. Put simply, in the Father’s Way, each no protects some yes. The noes in the Ten Commandments are designed to guard good things. “You shall not murder” protects life. “You shall not commit adultery” protects marriage. “You shall not steal” protects property. And so on. These noes act like walls around a city, ensuring that the good things within the city can flourish and thrive.

Applying this to our own parenting, we regularly ask ourselves, “When I say no to my kids, what good thing am I protecting? What gift am I guarding?” Often, we say no not because we are guarding some good, but because we are saving ourselves some inconvenience or hassle. This brings us to a third application of the Father’s Way.

Lesson 3: Say Yes to Something Better

When we say no, we ought to look for an opportunity to say yes to something else. Jesus tells us that, when we ask God for bread, he will not give us a stone. When we ask him for fish, he will not give us a snake (Matthew 7:9–11). In other words, God gives us what we ask, or something better. If we ask for bread, he gives us bread — or cake. If we ask for fish, he gives us fish — or steak.

“When we say no, we ought to look for an opportunity to say yes to something else.”

This “something better” must be broadly defined. We might say no (or “not yet”) because we are giving our kids the gift of patience (which is better than indulging their every desire). We might give them a task because we are giving them the gift of diligence and a faithful work ethic (which is better than allowing them to grow up lazy and slothful). We might say no to more screen time in order to say yes to more game time with Mom and Dad (since the long-term value of real relationships far outshines the temporary dopamine hit of our devices).

But in all of these cases, we are seeking to imitate God’s fatherhood, and to follow in the Father’s Way. As parents, real noes are unavoidable, and they are good, like the walls around the city. But we must remember that, as parents, the main thing we are offering is a city of yes, a home of yes, filled with joy and life and gratitude for the abundance of all things that flow to us from the God of yes.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15275527/what-kind-of-spiritual-armor-are-shoes

Have you ever wondered why we don’t think about heaven more? In fact, if heaven is all that Scripture says, how do we manage to think about anything else?

Observing this tension, C.S. Lewis wrote, “There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else” (The Problem of Pain, 149). In other words, all our longings find their true home in heaven. And yet, if we are honest, we spend far more time thinking about almost anything else. Why?

I suspect we don’t think much about heaven because we don’t think well about heaven. Until we learn to think well about heaven, we won’t think more about it. But if we learn to think well — ah, then it will be impossible to avoid thinking more. We must learn to rightly imagine heaven.

The Heaven Satan Loves

One of the main reasons we do not think well is because Satan hates heaven and wants us to do the same. Randy Alcorn explains, “Some of Satan’s favorite lies are about Heaven. . . . Our enemy slanders three things: God’s person, God’s people, and God’s place — namely, Heaven” (Heaven, 10–11). Satan is the father of lies, and some of his most damning lies involve the life to come.

Satan promotes the floaty no-place of Far Side cartoons, where ghostly figures sit on clouds strumming harps. This image, built on gnostic (anti-body) assumptions, induces utter boredom, and so Satan loves it. Saints may enjoy a bodiless heaven now, but it will not always be so. Satan knows no body-soul creature could be fully content to spend endless ages like that. And there’s the point. If Satan can get us to buy into a heaven unearthly, ghostly, or (God forbid) boring, we won’t think about heaven. And if we don’t think about it, why would we tell others or orient our lives toward it?

That final vision of heaven is an illusion, a dark enchantment cast by an envious Satan to extinguish our excitement about heaven. We don’t long because we don’t look, and we don’t look because we have believed lies. So, we must learn to banish this hellish hoax by thinking biblically about God’s place.

More Real, Not Less

Paul was a man who thought well about God’s place, and so it dominated his thoughts. In Philippians alone, Paul says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23) — a Christ-centered way of saying, “I long for heaven.” Later, he says we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). And he describes his whole life as a sprint toward a finish line: “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14).

That “upward call” is the heavenward call — the summons to come higher and higher. Like the saints in Hebrews, Paul desired to reach “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). The hope of heaven consumed Paul. Why? Because he thought well about heaven.

When our thoughts run in biblical tracks, we begin to understand that the joys of heaven will be full and deep and exuberant — pleasures enormous! We will not float as disembodied spirits strumming harps for eternity (however that works). Heaven will brook no boredom. It will be more solid, not less — more physical, more tangible, more diamond-hard, more real than anything we experience now. And yet, everything we experience now helps us imagine what is coming.

This, but Better

Paul himself teaches us how to think about heaven when he says, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). From these verses, we may infer that paradise will be better than the best things we experience now, better even than the wildest joys we can imagine.

“I suspect we don’t think much about heaven because we don’t think well about heaven.”

Now, I take Paul’s statement as a challenge because it means I can look at every good thing now and every good I can envision, and I can say of it, “Heaven will be this, but better.” You can learn to think well about heaven by enjoying all the good things in this life now, lifting them as high as your imagination can go, and saying, this, but better. After all, the best things now serve as a mere taste test, as echoes of the music or bright shadows of the far better country to come.

Let me apply this way of thinking well about heaven to three of the best gifts God gives now.

1. This Body, but Better

In heaven, we will enjoy new bodies. Christ “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). Secular propaganda leads us astray on this point and tries to make us more “spiritual” than God. But he made our bodies. As a master artist, he judged them very good (Genesis 1:31). He took a body for himself — and by taking, forever hallowed. When God became man, he definitively declared the permanent goodness of the body. No approval could be more final than the incarnation.

And so we will enjoy both souls and bodies for eternity — new bodies, better bodies, bodies like Jesus’s right now, bodies with glorified senses, bodies without disease or pain, bodies that can run with joy, work without exhaustion, see without glasses, live without aging — or better! And so when you enjoy your body at its best now in holy eating and sleeping and sex and running and sports and singing and hugs and work and laughter, think to yourself, this body, but better.

2. This Earth, but Better

Biblically speaking, when we talk about our eternal heaven, we mean the new heavens and the new earth. In the end, heaven is not the opposite of earth; heaven is earth redeemed and remade and married to the new heavens. As Alcorn says, “Heaven isn’t an extrapolation of earthly thinking; Earth is an extension of Heaven, made by the Creator King” (Heaven, 13).

Oh, what good news for those homesick for Eden! God created us to enjoy God’s presence with God’s people in God’s place. An earthly place with glorified trees and garden mountains, with unfallen culture and undiminished art, the taste of chocolate and the smell of bacon, with majestic thunderstorms and soul-stirring apricity — the warmth of the sun in winter. One day, paradise lost will become paradise regained and remade into a garden-city.

The new earth will be just that — new. Like our new bodies, we will recognize it. It will be free from the bondage of corruption and the ravishes of sin, but it will not be utterly different. When God renews this earth, no good will be finally lost, no beauty obscured, no truth forgotten. And so, every time you glimpse the gigantic glory of God here, think to yourself, this earth, but better.

But of course, the place is nothing without the person.

3. This Joy in Jesus, but Better

As Christians, we enjoy Jesus now. That’s what it means to be a Christian. We seek to enjoy Jesus in everything and everything in Jesus. But in heaven, our joy in Jesus will increase. It will grow deeper and sweeter. It will bloom and blossom. Our happiness will expand forever in every conceivable way. Why? Because we will see Jesus face to face. Our King will dwell with us bodily. We shall behold the Word made flesh.

This was the hope Job harbored amid his suffering:

I know that my Redeemer lives,     and at the last he will stand upon the earth.And after my skin has been thus destroyed,     yet in my flesh I shall see God,whom I shall see for myself,     and my eyes shall behold, and not another.     My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25–27)

Job fainted for the beatific vision, which will undoubtedly be more than physical but not less. If this hope of heaven is yours in Christ, then one day you, with the saints of all ages, will bask in the smile of Jesus himself. Our new knees will bow on a new earth, and we will join in the cosmic praise of Christ with new tongues. Can you imagine that?

Fullness of Joy

If you can, you are beginning to think well about heaven. You are learning to anticipate the place where God will satisfy all our longings with the pleasures at his right hand. When we finally set foot in the far green country, everything good we ever wanted — the longings we have cherished since childhood, the desires we downplay as adults, the yearnings that visit us in the silent moments and echo endlessly in our hearts, that sweet something we have searched for, reached for, listened for, hunted after — God will satisfy all. My whole being — body and soul — will cry out, “This is what I was made for. Here at last, I am home!”

Friend, we cannot hope for what we do not desire, and we cannot desire what we have not imagined. Therefore, let’s exercise our imaginations — our Bible-saturated, Spirit-empowered, Trinity-treasuring imaginations — to think well about heaven.

Heaven will be like this, but far better.