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.

All Articles

Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people.
The title “peacemakers” is not ours except as we tell and retell his peacemaking story.
Luther's response to Erasmus was not meant to be a polite contribution to an academic duel.
The reason the mind is endlessly troubled about God predestining everything is the vague generalization. Generalizations are cold as ice, without the warm Christ.
Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality.
The Psalms aren’t the clandestine successes of a faithful soul, but are the journaled hopes of a desperate soul — of one teetering on the edge of oblivion.
We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
Luther’s allies and opponents also would not allow him to put off responding to Erasmus indefinitely. They badgered him constantly to write a response.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
When the One who created the world comes to you, there is reason for courage and never reason to fear.
Blessed are we, for we are filled by the cornucopia of Christ’s righteousness.