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Isaiah 43:18-19 from The Message 18 Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. 19 Be alert, be present. I’m about to do soething brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Romans 8:9-14 from The Message 9 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. 10 But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells - even though you still experience all the limitations of sin - you yourself experience life on God's terms. 11 It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! 12 So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. 13 There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. 14 God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! DRAMATIC READING Reader 1: “You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach.” 2: They were watching their flocks “by night” 3: just hoping the sheep would not scatter 4: keep them calm — it is the only way to get some shut-eye out here 5: and then… 2: it happened. 3: [singing loudly] “Glooooooooo… ria” 3: Don’t be afraid… 4: another scene: 5: Scrooge climbed into his big comfy bed 2: hoping to sleep off that “bit of undigested meat” that had scared him out of his wits just now 3: gotta just let it go 4: find my wits, find my resolve, preserve my rational mind 3: [loudly] SCROOGE! 6: “Rise and walk with me” 1: “But how?” 6: “Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”