“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” - 2 Corinthians 10:4,5

So, those thoughts – lustful thoughts; malicious thoughts; selfish thoughts – that are contrary to spiritual ideals, we are to bring into the obedience of Christ, right? As I have previously stated, I am no Greek scholar. That said, the sense that I make of this passage is that bringing the thoughts into captivity is the obedient part – not that we are to somehow make the thoughts themselves obedient. For we read in Romans 8:7, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” That is, the thoughts cannot be obedient to God, but we can be obedient by taking those thoughts captive – not letting them lead us down a path that ultimately leads to death (see James 1:14,15).

Since our unseemly thoughts cannot be subject to the Lord, then it is our duty to not make ourselves subject to those thoughts. “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” - Romans 6:16. There is an old saying that goes “You can’t stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep it from building a nest there.”

Today, you may be struggling with trying to get certain thoughts “under control”. If so, I believe that you’re using the wrong battle plan. The admonition of Scripture, as I understand it, is not to control the thoughts, but to not let the thoughts control you. When they come up, stop them at the gate, and prayerfully commit to not following them – no matter how often they may come around. I suspect that if you keep refusing to “come out and play” with dangerous ideas, they might eventually stop knocking – at least not as often.