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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Sometimes I think I've gone through the whole forgiveness process, but forgiveness for me often feels like I'm weeding my garden. I forgive and another offense pops up.
Our Creator wants to restore us to a right relationship with him and all creation. So, in his goodness and mercy, he sent his Son to for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
Today we need to promote almost the reverse – to talk it like they walk it – the know-how and courage to engage in social discourse that reflects the truth of God’s revelation.
Although human reason pretends to understand a great deal about work and word of God. The glory of it is too bright, the longer he beholds it the blinder he becomes.
His word is what strengthens and changes our hearts. The Lord God will bring us victory.
If the feeding of the 5000 invited an emphasis on Jesus’ COMPASSION, this week’s miracle invites a sermon focused on Jesus’ AUTHORITY.
We trust God's Word because Jesus never fails us. He is our daily comfort when struggles and afflictions find us.
There is no justification except by faith alone. The radical forgiveness itself puts the old to death and calls forth the new.
“Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.”
The Gospels function like literary essays, composed with a specific thesis and purpose in mind. Each account of Jesus’s life acts as a treatise to show us something about the person and work of the Savior.
He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, even as we curse and yell at him for not pleasing us with our pettish wishes.
There is a repentance that is anti-repentance, for it clings tightly to the sin over which it sorrows, because in that sorrow is its consolation. In this warped spiritual scheme, our anguish is atonement; shame is our absolution; tears are our baptism. We feel better knowing how bad we feel about our wrongs. But there is a much better way.