When the law was written on tablets of stone, there was a significant weakness. The weakness of the Old Covenant was not in the law. The weakness of the Old Covenant was the people’s hearts. They couldn’t keep the law because they lacked two basic ingredients. Both of them interestingly were mentioned in the Old Testament when God used His prophets to speak while under the Old Covenant of the coming New Covenant. First, as God said through Jeremiah, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it” (Jer. 31:34). The writing of the law went from tablets of stone to tablets of human hearts (2 Cor. 3:3). And second, as God said through Ezekiel, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Eze. 36:27). We by far have greater power to obey the law with the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as God says, “causing” us to obey. So there should be a radical difference between us and Israel. It’s not in the God we serve. It’s not in the desire to obey Him. It’s not in the faith of a Messiah to take away our sins. It’s not in a law that is given from God to be obeyed. It’s not even in a delight in that law. The difference is simply this. The Old Covenant is characterized by people who were stiff-necked and rebellious (Dt. 9:6; 10:16; 31:27), whereas the New Covenant is characterized by people who have soft hearts and the ability to obey.

Randy Smith

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
Meats, Dairy		Poultry	4	Servings

INGREDIENTS

2	lb	Chicken breasts, skinned
1/2	c	Butter
1/2	pt	Sour cream
1/2	c	Sherry
1/2	ts	Rosemary
1/2	ts	Monsodium glutamte
1	ts	Salt
2	tb	Parsley
1/2	ts	Thyme
1	tb	Chopped green pepper
		Pepper to taste
1/2	c	Slivered almonds
		Sliced fresh mushrooms

INSTRUCTIONS

Brown chicken in butter in skillet.  Place in casserole. Add sour cream &
sherry (wine) to chicken drippings. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 10
mins. Pour mixture over chicken pieces. Bake 350 for 1 hour. Serve with
white/wild rice. (I made this ahead of time, refrigerated it, & then baked
~ delish!)
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

A Message from our Provider:

“Jesus is faithful. Who can you trust so fully?”

I have always been fascinated with the lives of the twelve apostles. Who isn’t? The personality types of these men are familiar to us. They are just like us, and they are like other people we know. They are approachable. They are real and living characters we can identify with. Their faults and foibles, as well as their triumphs and endearing features, are chronicled in some of the most fascinating accounts of the Bible. These are men we want to know. That’s because they were perfectly ordinary men in every way. Not one of them was renowned for scholarship or great erudition. They had no track record as orators or theologians. In fact, they were outsiders as far as the religious establishment of Jesus’ day was concerned. They were not outstanding because of any natural talents or intellectual abilities. On the contrary, they were all too prone to mistakes, misstatements, wrong attitudes, lapses of faith, and bitter failure – no one more so than the leader of the group, Peter. Even Jesus remarked that they were slow learners and somewhat spiritually dense (Luke 24:25).

John MacArthur