"The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life" Charles Stanley

Its been years since I first read Charles Stanley's "The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life."  I wished I had paid more attention to it when I first read it twenty years ago. Stanley takes a very balanced approach to the Spirit filled life and there is a red alert warning I want to post here.  It's one to which I took no heed and it has cost me dearly.  Stanley says this:

Like so many people, I wasn't always careful with what I allowed myself to think about. When I got serious about setting my mind on the things of the Spirit, I realized just how polluted my mind really was. God used one verse in particular to help me get on, and stay on, track in this area:
          We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. II Corinthians 10:5.
...There is no legitimate place in the mind of the believer for ideas, notions, dreams or fantasies that have as part of all their content things that are contrary to the truth of God. To entertain such thoughts for even a moment is to set our minds on the flesh and therefore walk after the flesh.
Stanley continues:

Look again at the standard by which we are to judge our thoughts:
Is it true?
Is it honorable?
Is it right?
Is it pure?
Is it admirable?
Is it excellent?
Is it praiseworthy?

Charles ends with :
If you are like me, you will be shocked at how many times a day you are tempted to take hold of one of these deceitful speculations and dwell on it. I am convinced that most Christians aren't aware of what they are doing. It becomes habit. As long as we don't follow through with what we are thinking, we usually don't consider our thoughts much of a problem. That is the trap. Without knowing it, we have begun walking in the flesh--and we aren't even aware that anything is different. But remember. "those who are [walking] according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh." Our mind-set is the chief indicator as to how or what we are allowing to lead us.