There is a side to our walk with Jesus Christ that provides rest and restoration. Jesus promises that anyone who comes to Him will experience His rest (Matthew 11:28), but there is another side that brings breaking and discipline. We can be assured that God brings this only to help us grow and mature for our good.

God portrays Himself as our Heavenly Father multiple times in scripture and He also affirms that He treats us the same way He commands earthly fathers to treat their children—with both love and discipline. The discipline of God, however, is never in the form of wrathful impatience but of loving kindness that we may not become small spoiled Christians but champions and warriors for Him.

God's discipline should not be something despised, although one must admit that we wish God didn't have to discipline us. Instead, we must change our outlook through the realization of what God has done for us in Christ; we are not disciplined out of hatred but out of loving grace that desires that we become better in every aspect of life.

Here are eight scriptures that show God as lovingly bringing discipline into our life so that we may grow in discipline as well.