Psalm 119:9-11

“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

Let’s face the music – our minds don’t naturally move out of childhood engagements that separate us from God into adolescence with the purest of thoughts. Depending on how well we were parented or “guardianed,” we engaged in behavior that expands into our adult lifestyles. Some of these patterns of behavior serve as hearty distractions to a great relationship with God. Sin is only such, because of our sin nature – the tendency of our natural inherited bent toward mental, emotional, and behavioral engagements separate from God and His intended will for our lives. SIN quite literally is the Separation of us from our Intended Nature. It is a very strange state of affairs we humans find ourselves in – made in the image of God with a heart built for eternity, yet ruled by a nature that constantly violates that intended image and confronted with a very short mortal lifespan. Write out the three verses above in your own words, applying them to how you would see the “ideal” teenager engage in Scripture memory and the fruit of that activity.