When the Bible says in 1 Jn 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God: this is the way I test the spirits.
If it is contrary to what the Bible says in the Old and New Testament, or the character and nature of God, then I know it wasn't the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Because He would not contradict Himself. We compare ALL scripture with scripture to rightly divide the Word of God. When I hear Him speak in line with God's Word many other verses come to mind and they all agrees together. I know sometimes a person does twist scriptures to fit their doctrine, but if we keep the verses in context we will know the difference.
I do want to clarify something I said, which was " You never know what He is going to do" . Well really we CAN know. Because He will always DO and say what is according to His Word. That's how we stay safe. But that was not what I was talking about at the time. I was talking about we don't know what awesome things He may do each day and all wonderful things He will reveal to us through His Word and Spirit.
We do need to be listening with our spiritual ears. And of course all of us are accountable for our actions. Concerning testing the spirits, I follow what is written in 1 Jn 4:1-3
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God;...
That is what is written, so that is what I do. That doesn't mean there are not other ways of discerning between spirits, but that is diffinetly a scriptual way to test the spirits.
I have meet some Christians that hear from the Lord, that like to use 1 Cor 12:3 "Therefore I make know to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus in accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord." except by the Holy Spirit.
So if they think they are picking up impressions from a demonic spirit, they ask that spirit to confess Jesus Christ is Lord. That sounds ok to me, and here is the scripture to back it up.
Then I have meet a number of Christians that simple go off there understanding and knowledge of the scriptures. 1 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. So the Scriptures are good for training in righteousness.
So if they are trained up in righteousness, you would think that they could tell if a spirit was good or evil by there understanding of the Scriptures. Yet Satan is crafty and I tend to think that he is smarter than me, and there are verse against leaning on our understanding, and verses for doing other specifics things to test the spirits.
Many have had a lot of practice hearing the Lord and seem to do a pretty good job of discerning between spirits because of their experience. There is scripture to back that up.
Heb 5:14 But solid foor is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. The context is practicing hearing as can be seen in verse 11 "Concerning him we have much ro say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
So, I study the Scriptures daily. I try to spend a lot of time listening to the Lord. I'd like to say that I was taking every thought captive to Jesus Christ, but I get busy and side tract too often. I usually refocus on Him about 10 to 20 times a day. And I try to make Him my Lord. That is; I try to get instructions from Him through out the day. If you have a Lord, He should be giving you some instruction. Yet when I test the spirits [our battle is not with flesh and blood] I use 1 Jn 4:1-3, because that is how we are specifically told to test the spirits, according to the Scriptures.
That is what I do, and it is all backed up by scripture. It works for me, if something else works for you fine. We are all accountable for ourselves. If you have other ideas, I would like to hear about them. If the Lord has told you something [we all know in part] I would like to hear it.