“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8, ESV).

What in the world had made him say that? Byron shook his head to free his thoughts. He hadn’t used profanity since he was a teenage boy, eager to show off how tough he was.

But back there in the conference room, with his colleagues gathered round, he had allowed the words to slip out.

How had this happened? He was a father of two girls, a church member, a cub scout leader. Like a bad horror movie on Friday 13, he felt as if something had possessed him!

He thought about the weekend he had just spent, playing golf with some rather rough friends; and the movie he had watched Sunday night with the profanity splattered throughout like mud on a windshield on a rainy night.

And it dawned on him that he had been hearing this sort of verbal trash all weekend.

He remembered the lesson this past week at church. The preacher had quoted Romans 12:2 which spoke of “the renewal of the mind.” “Minds can degrade,” the preacher had declared, “just like metal in the water, it can corrode and rust.”

Yes, Byron reflected. That’s what had happened to his mind. It had degraded.

The one thing worse than a vacant mind, he reflected, is one filled with filthy thoughts. Satan had used his vacant mind as a dumping ground. His thoughts had been impure, leading to impure actions.

Time for a toxic, thought clean-up, he reflected.

by Stan Mitchell @ www.forthright.net