“When shall I come and appear before God?” asks the psalmist (Psalm 42:2). “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?” asks another (Psalm 116:12). Micah asks, “Wherewithal shall I come before the LORD?” (Micah 6:6).

Those questions lead me to one more: What is the right praise at the right time?

We often think of praise as a response to what is happening around us. But praise declares who God remains in the midst of what is happening around us. A temporary season must never be allowed to make a permanent statement about our faithful God.

Every season asks something different of our faith. Each one gives us an opportunity to praise Him.

In blessing praise Him with gratitude

Luke 17 tells of ten lepers who cried out to Jesus for mercy. He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, and “as they went, they were cleansed” (Luke 17:14). All ten received what they had asked for. Only one turned back, glorified God, and fell at Jesus’ feet to give Him thanks.

The danger of a good season is that we can become so occupied with the gift that we forget the Giver.

You may be living in the answer to a prayer you once sought with tears. You prayed for the job, the child, the healing, the restored relationship, or the open door. Now that the answer has come, has it crowded out the prayer and devotion that brought you to God?

Gratitude puts the blessing in its proper place beneath the Blesser. Bring prayer back into the schedule your new job disrupted. Bring worship into the home God restored. Bring generosity into the increase He provided.

Do not let the answer to yesterday’s prayer become the reason you no longer pray today.

In emptiness give Him yet praise

Habakkuk described a devastating season. The fig tree would not blossom. There was no fruit on the vines. The fields yielded no food, and the stalls stood empty. Then he said, “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).

That one word—yet—did not erase what was missing. It refused to let what was missing have the final word.

The field was empty, yet God was faithful. The visible supply was gone, yet the Source remained.

You do not have to pretend an empty place does not hurt. There may be an empty chair at your table, an empty nursery, or an empty season in your ministry. “Yet” praise begins when you tell the truth about the pain and remember the truth about God.

I am hurting, yet I will praise Him. I am waiting, yet I will praise Him. I do not understand, yet I will praise Him.

In pain praise Him through surrender

After Job lost his children and possessions, he tore his garment, fell to the ground, and worshipped. He said, “Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

His torn garment showed the depth of his grief. His worship showed the depth of his surrender. Job did not have to hide his sorrow to bless the name of the Lord.

Some people are still working, serving, and caring for others while carrying grief or disappointment privately. If that is you, remember this: Never allow one painful chapter to erase an entire history of God’s faithfulness.

Your eyes can be filled with tears, and your mouth can still bless His name.

After failure praise Him through repentance

Peter promised he would stand with Jesus, even unto death. Before the night ended, he had denied knowing Him three times. When Peter remembered the Lord’s words, he went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61–62).

Sometimes the most sincere response we can bring God is a broken heart that says, “Lord, You were right.”

After His resurrection, Jesus asked Peter, “Lovest thou me?” and gave him work to do: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). Jesus addressed Peter’s failure and called him forward.

If shame is telling you to hide, repentance invites you to come into the light. Stop editing the story to protect your image. Tell God the truth. Confess what must be confessed. His mercy can meet you there.

Grace does not need a perfect past to produce a powerful future.

At midnight praise Him with expectation

Acts 16 tells us that Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God at midnight. Their backs had been beaten, their feet were fastened, and the prison doors were still closed when they began to sing. Then an earthquake shook the prison, and the doors opened (Acts 16:25–26).

Their praise began before the earthquake.

Midnight is that moment when yesterday has ended and tomorrow cannot yet be seen. It can feel like the time after the funeral but before peace settles in, or the gap between a lost job and the next opportunity.

The praise of expectation refuses to let the last visible event become the final word over your future. You can sing while the door is still closed because your confidence rests in the God who hears you.

Give God the praise this moment calls for

Blessing calls for gratitude. Emptiness calls for “yet” praise. Pain calls for surrender. Failure calls for repentance. Midnight calls for expectation.

Your circumstances may change the words of your praise, but they never change the One you praise.

“I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1). Whatever season you are living in, this is the right time to give God the praise that belongs to Him.

- Pastor Chad Erickson

© 2026 First Apostolic Church of Maryville. All rights reserved.

This content is provided for personal study and encouragement. Reproduction, republication, distribution, or use of this material as one’s own, in whole or in part, without permission is prohibited.

Jesus was a master storyteller. No one could use words quite like He could to help people see and understand a spiritual truth. He often taught by comparison, placing two very different pictures side by side to reveal what truly matters.

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells the story of two men whose lives could not have looked more different. One was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen who lived sumptuously every day. The other was Lazarus, a beggar covered in sores who longed for the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.

Their circumstances on earth were completely different, but eventually they had one thing in common: death.

It's Not How Long You Live

Lazarus died, and the rich man died. Jesus described two very different destinations. Lazarus was carried by the angels into paradise, while the rich man found himself in torment.

The lesson is sobering: it is not how long you live that matters. It is where you go when you die.

This life is temporary, but eternity is real. Whether someone spends this life with abundance or in need, earthly circumstances cannot change the certainty that this life will end. What matters is how we live now in preparation for eternity.

Whatever we are going to do for God, we must do it today. There will not always be another opportunity to pray, serve, obey, or reach someone. The time God has given us is now.

The First Prayer: I Want to Be Refreshed

In torment, the rich man lifted his eyes and asked that Lazarus be sent to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. The man who had lived with abundance was now begging for a single drop of water.

His first prayer request from hell was for refreshment, but it could not be granted. A great gulf was fixed between where he was and where Lazarus had been comforted.

What he would not value while he was on earth, he desperately wanted when it was too late.

We do not have to wait for eternity to desire the refreshing presence of God. We have access to that Water now. We can pray now. We can seek God now. We can live for Him now.

Money cannot provide that kind of satisfaction. Possessions cannot. Cars, status, success, and even other people cannot fill the place that belongs to God. Prayer and living for God offer what this world never can.

The Second Prayer: Send Someone to My Family

The rich man's attention then turned from himself to his family. He asked that someone be sent to his five brothers to warn them so they would not come to the same place of torment.

His second prayer request from hell was evangelistic.

He remembered his family. He knew where they were headed, and suddenly reaching them mattered more than anything else.

That should challenge us while we still have time to do something about the people we love. If we truly believe eternity is real, it should affect the way we pray, the way we fast, and the urgency with which we share the Gospel.

We cannot make anyone accept truth. We cannot force someone to live for God. But we can do our part. We can pray. We can fast. We can stand in the gap. We can speak the truth with love. We can keep reaching.

Pray While There Is Still Time

The rich man's two prayers came too late. He wanted refreshment for himself, and he wanted salvation for his family, but his opportunity to act had passed.

Ours has not.

We can seek the refreshing presence of God today. We can pray for our lost loved ones today. We can fast for them, reach for them, and stand in the gap for them today.

Church is about going to Heaven, and it is about helping as many people as possible go with us. If we really believe that, eternity cannot remain a distant doctrine. It must become an urgent reality that changes how we live and how we pray.

There are two prayer requests we never want to wait until eternity to pray: "I want to be refreshed," and "I don't want my family to come here." Pray them now, while there is still time.

- Bishop Kenneth Carpenter

© 2026 First Apostolic Church of Maryville. All rights reserved.

This content is provided for personal study and encouragement. Reproduction, republication, distribution, or use of this material as one's own, in whole or in part, without permission is prohibited.

It is possible to have good intentions and still see things incorrectly. We can sincerely believe we are right while misunderstanding ourselves, misjudging others, and missing what God is trying to show us.

That is why we need insight.

When Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus, he asked for something deeper than improved circumstances. He prayed that God would change how they saw.

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.”—Ephesians 1:17–19, KJV

Paul had heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for the saints. Yet he still prayed for their understanding to be enlightened. Faithful people need clearer vision, too.

We need God to help us recognize His purpose, understand His truth, and respond to His work in our lives.

What Are You Standing Under?

Think of understanding as the truth you stand under.

Like an umbrella in a storm, whatever you stand beneath influences how you experience everything around you. When we submit our thinking to God’s Word, His truth shapes our decisions. When we depend entirely on our own perspective, our fears, wounds, and assumptions can shape those same decisions.

A person who struggles with self-worth may interpret every correction as rejection. Someone carrying unresolved hurt may hear hostility in an innocent conversation. A person who refuses to examine himself may continually demand from others what he is unwilling to practice.

Without insight, we can repeat the same mistakes while blaming a different person each time.

The prayer for enlightened understanding invites God to examine the lens through which we see.

Lord, help me see what I have been missing.

When Culture Shapes Our Vision

The children of Israel wanted a king so they could be like the nations around them. Their desire for something visible and familiar affected their willingness to trust God’s leadership.

We face a similar temptation whenever the opinions around us become more persuasive than the Word before us.

Culture can teach us what to admire, what to pursue, and what to excuse. Over time, we may begin measuring spiritual things by standards God never established.

Insight helps us recognize that influence. It brings our thinking back under the authority of Scripture.

The question is whether we will allow God’s Word to correct us when it challenges what we have come to accept.

The Mercy of Being Confronted

Before his conversion, Saul of Tarsus persecuted the church with conviction. He believed his actions served God. His sincerity, however, did not make his judgment right.

On the Damascus road, Jesus confronted him:

“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”—Acts 9:4, KJV

Saul’s response revealed the humility that opens the way for change:

“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”—Acts 9:6, KJV

He stopped defending his direction and became willing to receive instruction.

There is mercy in that kind of confrontation. God loves us enough to interrupt a path that is leading us away from Him. His correction may unsettle us, but it also gives us an opportunity to repent.

Sometimes the very moment we resist is the moment God is using to open our eyes.

A teachable heart can pray, “Lord, show me where I am wrong, and help me obey what You reveal.”

Clearer Vision Produces Deeper Trust

Many of us eventually recognize wisdom in our parents that we overlooked when we were younger. Their counsel may be the same, but our understanding has grown.

Something similar happens in our walk with God.

As He enlightens our understanding, we begin to appreciate instructions we once questioned. We recognize protection in boundaries we once resented. We discover wisdom in counsel we were tempted to dismiss.

Spiritual maturity changes what we value.

Church life must therefore remain rooted in Spirit and Truth. Beyond the activities and personalities, we need an encounter with God that brings our lives into agreement with His Word.

Paul prayed that believers would know the hope of God’s calling, the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and the greatness of His power toward those who believe. Those realities give us reason to trust Him even when our circumstances remain difficult.

Make Room for God to Show You

One of the greatest obstacles to insight is the assumption that we already see everything clearly.

When we refuse correction, dismiss wise counsel, or protect our assumptions from Scripture, we close ourselves to the understanding we need.

But humility makes room for light.

Today, bring God the relationship you cannot understand, the frustration you cannot explain, and the pattern you keep repeating. Ask Him to show you what your own perspective has concealed.

My prayer is the same as Paul’s: that God would give you wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, and that the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened.

May we have the courage to receive His correction and the faith to follow His direction.

Lord, open my eyes. Bring my understanding under Your truth. And when You show me what needs to change, give me the humility to obey.

- Pastor Zach Hammond

© 2026 First Apostolic Church of Maryville. All rights reserved.

This content is provided for personal study and encouragement. Reproduction, republication, distribution, or use of this material as one’s own, in whole or in part, without permission is prohibited.

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:19, KJV

A child’s confidence can reveal something adults spend years trying to rediscover.

As a boy, Pastor Nolan Carpenter would approach the church concession stand, choose his snacks, and offer a simple instruction: “Put it on my father’s tab.”

He did not stand at the counter counting coins or wondering whether he could afford what he had selected. He knew his father. He knew the arrangement his father had made. That knowledge gave him confidence to approach.

What if we brought that same confidence into our relationship with God?

Many of us approach prayer carrying more uncertainty than expectation. We know God has power, but we wonder whether He cares about our particular struggle. We believe He can provide, yet hesitate to bring Him the need that has kept us awake at night.

Philippians 4:19 invites us to lift our eyes beyond our own resources: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

Our need may be great, but our Father’s resources are greater. His ability to provide does not depend on what remains in our hands.

Confidence grows when we remember whose children we are.

Knowing Where to Run

Our understanding of God shapes the way we respond to trouble.

When we see Him as distant, we struggle alone. When we assume He is reluctant to help, we approach Him timidly. When shame convinces us that we have failed too badly to pray, we carry burdens He has invited us to surrender.

Scripture gives us a different picture.

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” — Hebrews 4:16, KJV

The invitation is to come in our time of need. We do not have to resolve every struggle before approaching God. His throne is precisely where we bring the struggle.

Knowing our Father does not mean we will avoid every painful season. Faithful people still grieve, face sickness, experience disappointment, and wait for answers. But even in those seasons, we have somewhere to run.

“The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” — Proverbs 18:10, KJV

The storm may be real. So is the refuge.

Faith While the Walls Are Still Standing

Before Jericho’s walls fell, God spoke to Joshua:

“See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.” — Joshua 6:2, KJV

Joshua could still see the walls. God wanted him to see the promise.

That is often where faith begins: between what God has spoken and what our eyes can presently see.

Israel still had to march. They had to follow instructions that offered little explanation to the natural mind. Each step required trust in the One who had given the promise.

Imagine walking around the same walls day after day without seeing a crack. Obedience can feel that way. We pray, continue serving, and take the next faithful step while circumstances appear unchanged.

Yet an unchanged circumstance does not make obedience meaningless.

The walls were still standing, but Israel was still walking.

God also instructed the people to remain silent until the appointed time to shout. Pastor Carpenter drew a practical lesson from that silence: we must be careful about the words we speak while waiting.

We can tell God honestly that we are weary. We can acknowledge pain and ask for help. But we should guard against turning a difficult moment into a permanent verdict over our lives.

“I do not understand this season” leaves room for trust.

“God has forgotten me” closes our ears to His promise.

Faith keeps walking while it waits.

Somebody Had to Pay

The concession stand illustration carries another truth: every tab eventually comes due.

Someone has to settle the account.

Throughout Scripture, God’s provision points us toward Jesus Christ. Manna in the wilderness anticipates the Bread of Life. Water from the rock directs our attention toward the One who offers living water. The sacrifices reveal humanity’s need for cleansing that finds its fulfillment in Him.

The God who provided for His people came among us in Jesus Christ. At Calvary, He bore the cost of our redemption.

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” — 1 Peter 2:24, KJV

Our access to God rests upon His mercy and His sacrifice. We could never purchase forgiveness through achievement or erase sin through determination. Jesus provided what we could never provide for ourselves.

When He declared, “It is finished” in John 19:30, His words announced the completion of His sacrificial work.

The price of redemption had been paid.

A Picture of Cleansing and Freedom

Leviticus 14 describes a striking ceremony associated with the cleansing of a leper. Two clean birds were taken. One was killed over running water in an earthen vessel. The living bird, along with cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, was dipped in the blood before being released into the open field.

Pastor Carpenter used this ceremony as a picture pointing toward Calvary: sacrifice, cleansing, and freedom.

The imagery draws our attention to Jesus, who took upon Himself a human body and shed His blood for us. Wood, scarlet, and hyssop appear in the accounts surrounding His crucifixion. When His side was pierced, blood and water flowed.

Yet His story continued beyond the grave.

Jesus rose again. The One who bore the wounds of sacrifice lives, and through Him we have hope.

We can bring Him the shame we have tried to hide. We can repent of the sin that has held us captive. We can trust His power to cleanse and restore.

His sacrifice gives us reason to approach Him.

Trust Takes the Next Step

Naaman desperately wanted healing, but he nearly rejected the instruction that would lead him to it.

He expected a particular kind of encounter. Instead, Elisha sent word that he should wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman’s expectations collided with God’s direction.

His healing came as he humbled himself and obeyed.

That account asks something searching of us: Do we trust God enough to follow His Word when the process differs from what we imagined?

Faith reaches beyond agreeing that God is able. It moves us to respond to what He says.

We repent. We obey the command to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. We receive His promised Spirit. We forgive, surrender, and follow His leading.

Grace has provided what we could never earn, and faith responds with obedience.

Sometimes the next step will seem small. Sometimes it will challenge our pride. Sometimes it will require patience. But trust gives us courage to take it.

Bring Him What You Have Been Carrying

“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7, KJV

All your care.

The fear you have struggled to explain. The loved one you cannot reach. The failure you keep replaying. The sickness, uncertainty, and unanswered questions.

God invites you to bring them to Him.

Putting a need on the Father’s tab means trusting His character, His provision, and His wisdom. It means surrendering both the burden and our insistence on controlling how the answer must come.

We can pray boldly and wait faithfully. We can ask for healing and trust Him through the process. We can bring Him a desperate situation and continue obeying while the walls are still standing.

Picture that child approaching the concession counter again. His confidence began long before he received anything. It began with knowing his father.

Let that truth shape your next prayer.

You are approaching the One who knows your name, sees your need, and invites you near. Through Jesus Christ, He has made a way for you to come.

Bring Him what you have been carrying.

You know who your Father is.

- Pastor Nolan Carpenter

© 2026 First Apostolic Church of Maryville. All rights reserved.

This content is provided for personal study and encouragement. Reproduction, republication, distribution, or use of this material as one’s own, in whole or in part, without permission is prohibited.