This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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The only obedient son is shunned so that the disobedient one may return. Why? Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t leave them alone.
Each week, we will reflect on a few of the theses leading up to this year’s Here We Still Stand Conference in October. Each post will also include a new translation completed by Caleb Keith.
In the tiny Bible-belt town where I grew up, tragedy brought people together.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
The force of our love is violent. It is love acted out as, “I will love you in a way that’s best for me, and you’ll like it, and celebrate it, and reward me for it.
Where once we confessed reliance only in ourselves and our own power, now we confess reliance on Christ alone. So, for our relationship before God, our confession of faith matters.
Our meditation listens to the King of Kings when He says; it is finished.
We expect that if it is God’s word, it must have fallen out of the sky on golden plates.
No matter how loving we are, we don’t get bonus points with the Almighty for imitating Jesus. We love each other because we recognize that “this is one for whom Jesus died.
The question at hand was quite short, “Who is Jesus Christ?
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
Led by God’s Word we can grasp why this gap exists, grows, and threatens us. Simply put, we don’t take sin seriously. We don’t take the effects of our sinful rebellion on all of creation seriously.