User:A Quaker Witness/sandbox

The fundamental experience upon which the Society of Friends rests is the universal presence, in every human heart, of Christ, the Word of God and "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." (John 1:9)   From this experience come all other valid understanding of God's plan for His people, including:
 * that Jesus of Nazareth was the perfect embodiment of Christ, the Word;
 * that the Scriptures were authored by Christ and cannot be understood without His guidance; that to be a minister (a servant) of the gospel, at any moment and for any individual, requires immediate inspiration by Christ and, without that, cannot be attained by even the most exhaustive human study and preparation;
 * that we worship God in spirit and in truth, under the direction of Christ among us, and not according to any human program;
 * that salvation is not just remittance from the just punishment for our sins, but deliverance from the power of sin and death, this coming not as a result of our actions (by works) but by the grace of God, and that it is as a result of salvation, worked out from day to day, that the desires of our hearts, our thoughts and our deeds become good, as we please God and are pleasing to Him;
 * that those who would follow Christ, as revealed in Jesus and His teachings, are held to an even higher standard of holiness than were the Pharisees;
 * that the presence of the Light of Christ in every person meant that salvation by that Light was available to every person (regardless of where he or she was, when he or she lived, or whether he or she knew anything of historical Jesus);
 * that the universal presence of Christ in every heart means that every person will be held to the same expectations by God when he or she stands before Him to be judged.