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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If the LORD is faithful to His Covenant—and He must be—then He will remember His people and take action.
By every conceivable category, grace shouldn't exist. It shouldn't have been bestowed. It's the card in God's trick we never saw coming.
“God with Us”...is a common theme throughout Scripture: No one else has a God like ours, who is truly with His people.
God will not repent. He will not repent of His promises. He will not change His mind regarding His selfless, self-sacrificing, inconceivable love for sinners.
Isaiah’s beautiful prophetic language describing the, “Coming of the Promised One,” is very familiar to us, but the challenge is always to determine to which coming of the Messiah Isaiah’s prophecy is pointing towards.
It seems too good to be true, and yet it is the truest of all truths. This is our God. This God sees and chooses to trample our sins under his feet.
I can only disbelieve you or believe you. If I disbelieve you, I go on being a miserable bore.
Isaiah 11:1-10 provides us with an Advent text capturing the beauty, excitement and reality of both the first coming of the Messiah and the second coming.
The problem is not that we are unrepentant. The problem is our contrition is too small.
We long for the Great Thanksgiving that hasn’t happened yet.
To pray that God’s name is hallowed among us is to pray for the continual proclamation of the gospel in truth and purity that we would hear the word about Christ crucified for sinners.
Isaiah 2:1-5... is a beautiful eschatological prophecy focusing on the era of peace that comes along with the coming of the LORD.