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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This is the third article in a special three-part Advent series on how Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king.
This is the second article in a special three-part Advent series on how Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king.
This is the first article in a special three-part Advent series on how Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king.
The Lord did for Hannah what he loves to do: he shifted everything into reverse, making the bottom the top and the top the bottom.
However knowledgeable you may become by reading Buddha or compassionate after following Gandhi, you will never find forgiveness in anyone else other than Christ alone.
The crucified and risen Christ comes to renew, restore, and build up.
The Lord’s provision doesn’t rest on the strength of our gratitude.
Christ is the beating heart of Christian faith and its only object.
Instead of a “how-to” manual, the Bible is a “what-you-didn’t-do” story.
Christ is always the ultimate for God's children, but we sometimes struggle with things that come before.
If we picture the New Testament as a divinely painted masterpiece that hangs in the middle of a museum, then all around it are other works of the period, in different corridors of the museum, in many styles, painted by diverse artists, with variations of color and technique.
To preach Christ and him crucified is to keep the message simple and accessible.