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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Ever since the tragedy of the Garden, God’s plan of redemption has been in motion. His movement upon this world has never ceased, and it never will.
He would not go back on his word, for his word is the word of the Father and the Spirit, and they all say “come.”
Only through Christ and his work are our sins forgiven, and our consciences set free and made glad.
The gift of new life through His death and resurrection, creates Christ’s children, all of whom are being sent with beautiful feet and beautiful tongue and lips to serve as the Lord’s hitmen and midwives.
Ultimately, you are not your problems. You are not your weaknesses. You are not your sins. You are sanctified. You are the recipient of God’s abundant, forgiving, amazing grace.
If the world could have been saved by bookkeeping, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus. The law was just fine.
The lordship of sin and its reign have been deposed by Jesus Christ. Nothing can stand to oppose those who are in Him.
The gospel does not proclaim the results of our practical reasoning about things we experience, but the horror of God crucified for our sins and at our hands.
Since Jesus has done everything we need for salvation, we can focus our works and efforts on serving our neighbor.
The enemy comes with his wounding, haunting words, and I stand behind my advocate Christ the Lord. He gives me more words, better words, truer words.
As the storm waves of life crash into us, threatening to pull us down into the undertow of sin, Jesus comes and stands between us and the furious tides.
Christ isn’t preached in his glory but in his ignominy, his utter shame, degradation, and desolation.