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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The whole world's sin, the crushing horror of death's power, and even hell itself were unleashed on that hill outside Jerusalem where Jesus was executed.
When the story begins in creation and ends in restoration, all the moments in between are filled with the working of God.
What I have come to see is that while anyone can make a conscious decision to walk away from God or deny him, a person can’t accidentally lose his or her salvation.
Ashes and dust do not need the services of spiritual EMTs; we need a Second Adam from whom we regain life itself.
Jesus sits by the well as a shepherd, coming to offer this woman a life-giving stream.
On this day in 1984, Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, a leader in the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, died. He left behind a controversial legacy. How should we regard him today, thirty-six years after his death? Was he a hero? Was he a villain?
The more we demand from Christ, the more of Himself He gives to us. When we demand a glass of grace, He gives us an ocean of Gospel.
When talking about God’s ultimate destination for us, we’ve grown sloppy in our language, nearsighted in our gaze, and un-Easter in our hope. We act and speak as if dying and going to heaven is what the faith is all about. It is most emphatically not.
Jesus promises to work for you, forgiving your sins, but He also promises to work through you, forming you into a witness to the world.
The original sin of Genesis 3 was not gutter-style-sin, but glory-style-sin. It was more of an upward grasp than a downward fall. - Nathan Hoff
What the law is powerless to do, Jesus accomplishes for us. Jesus delivers what the law demands.
Ash Wednesday confronts us with our true nature, our mortality, and marks us with the only escape from it: the cross of Christ.