"do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits"

OK, how do we do that?

1 John 4:1-3(NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of 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 of God, 

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

Couple of things here.  First it hadn't occurred to me that even though we have the Holy Spirit in us to guide us we will still have to contend with other spirits trying to influence us.  I know there are people out there who will try to deceive us and talk us out of our beliefs but for some reason I had not thought of it from the spiritual aspect.

The second thing is that I love that there is guidance from Scripture on how to test the spirits.  Pretty cool!