Hebrews 12:7 (NIV)
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

I remember I was ministering to youth in what we use to call generation 'x' and now we are long past generation x and we've come to generation 'entitlement'. "I'm entitled to this," unless it was over the wall, "I'm entitled to this or that." "You're rich so I'm rich." "No, I'm rich your flat broke." God is rich, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine. He's got gold on His streets, my Father is rich, but you're broke. So often in our attempt to stop our children from going through what we went through we destroy their lives by giving them everything rather than realising that everything we went through makes us who we are today and some of the pain we went through even though it hurt us, shaped our character and shaped our lives.

I went through some hard times a few years ago and a man walked up to me and said, "I bet you wished you had have avoided that?" and I said, "No, not on your life as it was one of the greatest learning periods in my life." God didn't judge me God saved me. When I look at the people I was running with and where they are today and look at what God has done in my life I am so thankful that He put His hand down and plucked me out and never allowed me to continue on that line.

So it is a matter of the way that you look at things. You see no chastisement for the moment seems to be joyous. The bible says that it is grievous. God loves us and He is going to chastise, He is not going to spoil. We see a spoilt attitude coming in and people doing their own thing with people around them who have wanted their love so much that they let them get away with everything in the world. They then become corrupted within themselves, there's no discipline. The word discipline means discipleship, teach and instruct, to develop character, to put restraints and to build boundaries. Where there is no chastisement, we see a house without love. We see a house heading for destruction. We see a house without leadership.
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