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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Regardless of what our eyes, senses, and circumstances tell us, we belong to Christ, and He is with us.
We don’t need to make forgiveness, life, and salvation a hard sell.
I had been taught and believed in a God who is love, but as I walked outside that night I did not see him. I saw the stars and I felt their indifference.
Jesus will be working in our feeble misguided efforts to reach out to the world. He governs our words and our deeds, no matter how awkward they might seem.
Jesus Christ has finished his work of delivering you from the consequences of your sins and the brokenness of this fallen world.
Only true doctrine teaches people how to love God and others. Love is the best test for our theology, for true love and true doctrine go together.
Rather than validate our selfish, self-serving choices, he justifies us by giving us new life and baptizing us into his death and resurrection.
“Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.” Those nine words could serve as the Bible’s subtitle.
We would expect Jesus to be delighted people have responded to the master’s invitation. Instead, Jesus asks these people to reconsider whether they should be following Him or not.
As we do in daily life, so we have done in our reading of the Bible: we have placed ourselves at the center, and Christ at the periphery.
God isn’t fooled by our fake piety. He would rather have us venting honestly than faking it.
The question that this text poses for us today is “What does it mean to believe in the resurrection?”