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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You can talk to me about how Jesus is really forgiving and how you want me around, but what happens when things don’t change in a month?
We pray for God to deliver us from ourselves. To forgive us, for Jesus’s sake, when we do evil.
Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
There are some things that just go together. Walk through the aisles of a store and see colors harmonize with spring colors that paint the earth.
He reminds them how his love is truly marvelous and unconditional, but then, he looks them in the eyes, and says they ought to do better because of his love.
Apart from bare, naked faith in Jesus' atoning work for us, no sinner is, or ever can be, holy.
Paul’s letter to the Romans is arguably the most masterful piece of writing in the New Testament.
The God who's lifted up above Calvary, abandoned and forsaken, should draw a more discerning crowd of followers.
Looking at our dining room table most days, you might think we were running a cartoon factory out of our house. Drawings. Everywhere.
We’ve been desperate—and it is a gift of God when we are, when we realize our lost condition!
One of my favorite shows in recent memory is the American law enforcement drama Law & Order.
In other words, they had too much religion and not enough Yahweh. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, they worked so hard at being religious that they put Jesus out of work.