What does the Bible teach about God's discipline of His children?

God disciplines His children, but His discipline is never punishment. Jesus Christ on the cross bore the punishment for all our sins. When we get out of line, God disciplines us for the sole purpose of getting us back on course. He hates sin because He knows its destructive power in our lives, and out of His desire to deliver us from that power He administers corrective discipline. This discipline comes in three increasingly intense stages: warning discipline, intensive discipline, and dying discipline. Warning discipline is often first sensed as a loss of inner joy and happiness, followed by things seeming to go wrong all around us. Intensive discipline is the scourging stage—a painful lashing that may include loss of health, property, or loved ones. Dying discipline is when we absolutely refuse to recover, and God at some point calls us home in the sin unto death. The purpose of God's discipline is always correction, never punishment, and it is carried out in love because His intention is never to punish us but to restore us.