Every child is a bundle of raw emotions and energies. The role of the parent is to help the child control himself so that these emotions and energies are not destructive but constructive. Discipline is simply teaching a child to control himself.
There is a vast difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is getting even. Discipline is inflicting a smaller amount of pain on a person than he would receive if he were permitted to go on unchecked in his action. For example, if your small child reaches out to touch a hot stove, you grab his hand and slap it sharply. You have inflicted pain on the child, but the pain is far less than what he would receive if he were permitted to go ahead and touch the stove. That is discipline.
God disciplines His children, but He does not punish them. Punishment occurs when a person wants to hurt someone as badly as he has been hurt. But God's Word clearly says: If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrew 12: 7-11).
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
Hebrews 12:6 KJV
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