Grow In Faith

It may not be Thanksgiving quite yet, but gratitude is something we can practice any day of the year. You don't have to wait for the turkey and pumpkin pie to start giving thanks.

Does happiness make us grateful, or does gratitude make us happy? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church looks at what the whole Bible says about thankfulness, from Leviticus to the letters of Paul, and why gratitude may be the most powerful spiritual discipline of all.

Short answer: Gratitude is a choice. It's a discipline we can practice, not just a feeling...

It may not be Thanksgiving yet, but this message is worth hearing any time of year. Gratitude isn't meant to be saved for one Thursday in November. Psalm 100 invites us to give thanks every day, because God's goodness, love, and faithfulness don't take a day off.

What does it mean to "enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise"? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church wraps up a Thanksgiving devotional series on Psalm 100 with verses 4 and 5, and a reminder of why Thanksgiving is one of the most biblical holidays we celebrate.

Short answer...

Why do Christians sing in church? What does it mean that "the LORD is God"? And why does the Bible call us sheep? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church continues a Thanksgiving devotional series on Psalm 100, looking at verses 2 and 3.

Short answer: The Bible never tells us to worship, because everyone already worships. We all organize our lives around what we value most. (On fall Sunday afternoons in Chicago, some of the biggest "worship services" happen at Soldier Field.) Instead, Scripture tells us to direct our worship to God. And when Psalm 100 says "Know that the LORD...

Is gratitude a feeling or a choice? As Thanksgiving approaches, Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church begins a devotional series on Psalm 100, one of the most beloved psalms in the Bible, and what it teaches about thankfulness.

Short answer: In the Bible, thankfulness is a command, not just an emotion. Psalm 100 doesn't tell us we have to feel thankful. It tells us to express thanks and to practice the actions of gratitude, because those actions shape our hearts over time, much like teaching a child to say "please" and "thank you."

In this devotional, you'll...

Why have Christians prayed the Psalms for centuries? And how does Psalm 1 point to Jesus? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church wraps up a devotional series on Psalm 1 with a few final observations about prayer, the heart, and the One who walked the right path perfectly.

Short answer: The Psalms teach us how to pray. They give us words for praise, thanksgiving, confession, lament, and even anger, so we can speak honestly back to God. And Psalm 1 ultimately points to Jesus, the only one who perfectly delighted in God's law and always chose the right path, yet...

What does it mean to be "like a tree planted by streams of water"? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church continues a devotional series on Psalm 1, looking at verses 3–6 and the striking contrast between a deeply rooted tree and chaff that blows away in the wind.

Short answer: People who put their roots deep into God's Word can survive and even flourish when hard times come, like a tree near a stream that keeps drawing water even in a drought. The wicked, by contrast, are like chaff: weightless, lifeless, and carried away by the wind. Psalm 1 makes it...

What does it mean to meditate on God's Word "day and night"? Is Christian meditation the same as Eastern meditation? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church continues a devotional series on Psalm 1, focusing on verse 2: the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord.

Short answer: Psalm 1 teaches that we make wise decisions not mainly by being smart, but by loving the right things. And Christian meditation is different from Eastern meditation. Eastern meditation tends to focus on emptying the mind. Christian meditation focuses on filling it, going deep into a truth about God or...

What does it mean to be truly blessed? Psalm 1 opens the book of Psalms with a choice between two paths, one that leads to life and one that leads to destruction. Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church kicks off a devotional series on the Psalms by looking at Psalm 1:1 and asking a simple but searching question: Which path are you on?

Like Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken," Psalm 1 is about a choice that makes all the difference. The psalm offers wisdom for how to live well and find real happiness, both when life is...

Why did God accept Abel's offering but reject Cain's? Cain worked the soil and Abel kept flocks, two honest jobs, so was God being arbitrary? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church answers a fair and often-asked question about the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4.

Short answer: It wasn't about one job being better than the other. Farming and shepherding can both be done fully to the glory of God, and both brothers came to worship. The text suggests a few differences: Abel brought a blood sacrifice, Abel brought his very best while Cain likely brought...

Why did God give Israel the Ten Commandments and all those Old Testament laws when He knew no one could keep them? Was He setting a trap? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church explains the real purpose of God's law, and why it's actually a gift.

Short answer: The law was never a condition for earning God's love. In Exodus, God rescues His people first (Exodus 19) and gives the law after (Exodus 20). Grace comes first. The law gave a newly freed people a good structure for life, and it gives all of us an objective standard that...

What does it actually mean that humans are made in the image of God? Does it mean God has a body like ours? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church explains Genesis 1:26, which may be the most consequential claim in the history of Western civilization.

Short answer: No, being made in God's image doesn't mean God looks like us. In the ancient world, an "image" was a statue in a temple or a marker of a king's authority. Genesis took that idea and applied it to every human being, not just kings. Every person, without exception, bears God's...

Where did Cain get his wife? If Adam and Eve were the first people, who did Cain marry, and who was he afraid of after he killed Abel? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church answers one of the most famous questions skeptics ask about the book of Genesis.

Short answer: Genesis tells a compressed story that follows one family line, not every person alive. Genesis 5 says Adam had other sons and daughters, so there were more people on the Earth than the few who are named. That means Cain most likely married a sister or a niece...

Was Noah's flood a worldwide event or a local one? Is the story of Noah's Ark even real history? And how could a loving God send a flood at all? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church answers some of the most-asked questions about Genesis 6–9.

Short answer: Yes, there really was a flood. Not because someone claims to have found the ark, but because both the Old and New Testaments treat it as history. Jesus, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews all speak of Noah as a real person. Whether the flood was global or local can be ar...

How long were the days of creation in Genesis 1? Does the Bible teach that the Earth is only 6,000 years old? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church walks through the major Christian views on the age of the Earth, and explains why this debate shouldn't divide the church.

Short answer: Faithful, Bible-believing Christians land in different places on this question, and the debate is far older than modern science. Even Augustine, about 1,600 years ago, wondered whether the universe might be very old. What Genesis 1 clearly teaches isn't a date. It teaches that the universe had a beginning and...

If God is good and everything He made was good, where did evil come from? How did the serpent get into the garden? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church takes on what may be the biggest question of all: the problem of evil.

Short answer: Genesis never gives evil an origin story, and that silence seems intentional. Evil doesn't get a dignified backstory; it simply shows up as an intruder. The classic Christian answer, going back to Augustine about 1,600 years ago, is that evil isn't a "thing" God created. It is the corruption of good things, and...

Were Adam and Eve real people, or just a symbolic story? And did the serpent in Genesis 3 really talk? Pastor Mike Woodruff of Christ Church answers two of the most common questions about the beginning of the Bible, and why the answer matters for the gospel, for suffering, and for your everyday life.

Short answer: Yes. Adam and Eve were real people, the fall was a real rebellion, and the serpent represents real, personal evil. But understanding Genesis well means paying attention to its genre. It is ancient literature that uses compressed, symbolic language to describe real...

What if the biggest barrier to sharing your faith isn't the other person's hostility, but the fact that nobody has ever asked them? In Part 16, the finale of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff closes out the fall study with Paul's final assignment in Colossians 4:5-6: be wise toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity, and let your conversations be full of grace, seasoned with salt.

Mike boils Paul's instruction down to one simple line: talk to God about people, and talk to people about God. That starts with prayer, asking God for opportunities...

A man travels all the way to India searching for the meaning of life, comes home empty-handed, and starts asking gas station attendants what he's supposed to be doing. The reply he finally gets from Chevron? A credit card application. In Part 15 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff shares this classic Mike Royko story from Chicago journalism to make a simple point: you won't find your purpose at a gas station. You get it from the one who created you.

Drawing on Ephesians 2:10 and 1 Peter 4:10, Mike shows that one right, important answer to "What...

We agonize over whether to take this job or that one, go this way or that way. But some of God's will isn't a mystery at all. In Part 14 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff points to one thing Scripture makes crystal clear: devote yourselves to prayer (Colossians 4:2).

So what is prayer? Mike shares the story of D.L. Moody asking a room of schoolchildren that very question and getting a Westminster Confession answer from a young Scottish boy: prayer is the offering up of our desires to God. Mike loves the ACTS acrostic...

Babies are adorable. But if a baby never grows, it stops being cute and becomes tragic. In Part 13 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff turns to a question every believer should ask: are you growing, or are you just growing older?

Mike explains that spiritual growth isn't optional. Romans 8 says God's goal for everyone who comes to him is to be conformed to the image of his Son. We won't become gods, but we are meant to become godly: Jesus-like, with the character and the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5. Mike offers...

When one word covers your commitment to your spouse and your love of deep dish pizza, it's been spread a little thin. In Part 12 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff recovers the richer, tougher meaning of biblical love and shows why it changes how we treat the people God puts around us.

Mike walks through the Greek words behind the English "love": eros (romantic attraction), phileo (brotherly affection, the root of Philadelphia), and agape, the big one. Agape is selfless commitment, love that is not first a feeling but a choice. When Scripture commands...

Some advice is easy to understand and nearly impossible to follow. In Part 11 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff opens with a story from a jog through a British Columbia park, where the local bear-safety rule was "hump, lump, black, attack," and uses it to raise an uncomfortable question: what about the biblical advice we understand perfectly well but are unlikely to take?

The advice in question today is this: you were made for family and community. American folklore celebrates the rugged individualist, but the Bible never does. From Genesis 12 onward, Scripture tells the...

We are not auto-focus cameras. In a world engineered to capture every ounce of your attention, how do you keep your focus on God? In Part 10 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff offers two old ideas that still work in a modern, distracted world.

First, establish a daily time with God. Mike finds mornings best, and even a few minutes is enough, though he'd recommend more. Just stop and be with him: talk, sit in silence, read his Word, pray. Drawing on Matthew 6, where Jesus says to go to your room, close the door...

Is your work just work, or can it be worship? In Part 9 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff wraps up the Greatest Commandment with the most down-to-earth piece of all: loving God with all your strength. That means your energy, your abilities, your hands, your schedule, your effort. In other words, loving God in practical, tangible ways.

Mike offers a simple way to think about it. Even though God created everything you have, there are things he doesn't receive unless you give them. He doesn't have your attention unless you give it (loving him...

Does studying your faith too deeply put your heart at risk? In Part 8 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff pushes back on a myth he's heard for years — "seminary, cemetery," the idea that thinking hard about God cools your love for him. He makes the case for exactly the opposite.

Jesus explicitly commands us to love God with our mind, not just our heart, soul, and strength. Mike names something he sees as one of the most neglected corners of the church today: a subculture that has largely stopped thinking deeply about anything, snacking on...

Money, success, romance, celebrities, your kid's team, your golf game — deep down, we're all worshiping something. In Part 7 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff explains why that restlessness in your soul isn't a problem to fix with more effort — it's evidence of what you were actually made for.

Mike points out that our culture's obsession with celebrities and athletes is really an attempt to borrow meaning from something bigger than ourselves — and it never quite works, because we're worshiping the wrong object. He turns to Augustine's famous prayer from Confessions — "You made us for yourself...

If worship is just the 20 minutes of singing before the sermon, we've shrunk something enormous down to something manageable — and worship was never meant to be manageable. In Part 6 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff resets what worship actually means, and why it's a whole-life response, not a Sunday-morning activity.

Mike unpacks Romans 12, where Paul doesn't ask us to offer God our voices — he asks us to offer our bodies, our entire being, as a living sacrifice. Worship, Mike explains, comes from the old English "worth-ship" — declaring what's worth everything to us, through our songs...

Remember the first time you fell in love — how you thought about that person the moment you woke up, all day long, and as you fell asleep, without anyone telling you to? In Part 5 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff explains that this is exactly the kind of love Jesus is describing when he commands us to love God "with all our heart." Not procedural. Not dutiful. Passionate.

Mike tackles a question a lot of people quietly wonder about: doesn't it seem a little needy for God to command us to love and worship hi...

What's your purpose in life? Someone actually asked Jesus that question — and his answer fits in a single sentence. In Part 4 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff unpacks the Greatest Commandment and shows how it distills your entire God-given purpose into one line: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength... and love your neighbor as yourself."

Mike breaks down two things easy to miss in this answer. First, it's about love — not rule-keeping, religious performance, or being impressive to God...

You're on a road right now — and it's taking you somewhere, whether you've thought about it or not. In Part 3 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff unpacks one of the most sobering lines in the Sermon on the Mount: "Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Matthew 7:13–14).

Mike walks through why this matters far more than it first sounds. Every decision, every habit, every ordinary Wednesday is quietly shaping the direction of your life — pushing you either toward the narrow road that leads to lif...

What if the reason life feels exhausting isn't that you're not trying hard enough — it's that you were never meant to be the main character? In Part 2 of our "Made for Something" series, Pastor Mike Woodruff makes the case that the search for purpose starts with one uncomfortable but freeing truth: it's not about you.

Our culture constantly tells us to find ourselves, express ourselves, be true to ourselves. Mike flips that script using an idea popularized by Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life: God is the main character of the story, not us. He compares it to...

Have you ever stood in a moment so humbling you had to ask, "What on earth am I doing here?" Pastor Mike Woodruff kicks off a brand-new devotional series, Made for Something, with a story that's equal parts funny and painfully relatable: failing a board-breaking test at a father-son martial arts class — in front of a room full of parents, after an eight-year-old and a six-year-old both nailed it on the first try.

That embarrassing moment leads to a much bigger question — one you've probably asked yourself too, whether at 2am, on a stifling commute, or i...

You can cram for a final exam. You cannot cram a harvest. In the final part of this "Best Of" devotional series on the Parable of the Sower, Pastor Mike Woodruff wraps up the week with a modern parable that reframes everything covered so far — the difference between the "law of the student" and the "law of the farmer."

Drawing from Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Mike contrasts two very different ways of approaching growth. Students can procrastinate all semester, pull an all-nighter during finals week, and still walk away with an A. Farmers don't ha...

What does a homemade worm compost bin have to do with your spiritual life? More than you'd think. In Part 3 of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff tells a story from 25 years ago — building a caffeine-fueled compost pile with Starbucks coffee grounds and bait-shop worms — that ends up teaching a surprisingly deep lesson about the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13.

Mike starts by pointing out something easy to miss: Jesus' parables were always drawn from the world right in front of him — sheep for shepherds, fish for fishermen, soil for farmers. If Jesus taught today, the il...

Have you ever wondered what farming actually looked like in Jesus' day — and why it makes the Parable of the Sower hit so much harder? In Part 2 of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff shares what he learned standing in a recreated first-century village in Nazareth, Israel, and how it changed the way he reads Matthew 13.

Mike paints the picture: hillside terraces, a narrow hard-packed path, good soil, and an unattended patch right against the rock wall — all within a few feet of each other. When the farmer scatters seed, it's not landing on four far-apart fiel...

Same seed. Different soil. Wildly different results. In Part 1 of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff opens up one of Jesus' most well-known parables — the Parable of the Sower, also called the Parable of the Four Soils — from Matthew 13.

Mike reads through the full parable: a farmer scatters seed, and it lands on a path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and finally on good soil — each with a completely different outcome. Jesus then explains to his disciples why he teaches in parables at all, quoting the prophet Isaiah about hearts that have grown dull. Mike breaks down t...

You've heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan a hundred times. But have you ever noticed you're actually the man left for dead in the story — and Jesus is the one who stops to save you? In the final part of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff reveals the connection most people miss entirely: this parable isn't just about how to treat others. It's a picture of the gospel itself.

Mike walks back through everything covered this week — how Jesus challenged the racism of his day, how he redefined what it means to love your neighbor, and...

Jesus doesn't ask the question you'd expect. In Part 3 of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff finishes walking through the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:34–37 — and shows how Jesus flips the entire conversation with one brilliant question.

The Samaritan bandages the injured man's wounds, puts him on his own donkey, pays for his care at an inn, and promises to cover whatever else it costs. Then Jesus asks the expert in the law: "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?" Mike unpacks why that question is not the one anyone expected — Jesus...

Why did Jesus make the Samaritan the hero of his most famous parable — and not the priest, and not the Levite? In Part 2 of this "Best Of" devotional, Pastor Mike Woodruff walks through the story itself in Luke 10:30–33 and unpacks a detail most people completely miss.

Yesterday, a religious leader tried to sidestep Jesus with a loaded question: "Who is my neighbor?" Today, Jesus answers with the parable itself — a man beaten and left for dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, ignored by a priest, ignored by a Levite, and finally helped by a Samaritan. Mike e...

Most people think the Parable of the Good Samaritan is just a story about being kind to the poor. It's not — and Pastor Mike Woodruff breaks down what's really happening in Luke 10 in this "Best Of" devotional from our archives.

In this episode, Mike unpacks the setup to one of Jesus' most famous — and most misunderstood — parables. An expert in the law tries to test Jesus with a question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus turns it back on him, the man answers correctly ("love the Lord your God... and love your neighbor as yourse...