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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For most of my Christian experience I was taught and I taught others that church was primarily a place to go to serve, to use your gifts, to bless others.
God’s Law is a death sentence for us sinners. There is no winning beneath the Law of God.
The Gospel predominates when hearers receive the saving gifts of Christ as God’s final word to them.
Bring your black eyes and bruised hearts. Bring your criminal records and soiled pasts. Bring your same sex attraction and internet history. Jesus isn't afraid of your sin or your righteousness.
God only baptizes babies. He only saves babies. He only resurrects babies.
Pictures of God’s grace for us in and through His Son, Jesus, can be found in the most unlikely places. Recently, I witnessed one such picture of God’s grace during WrestleMania 34.
The law demands love, and love has no limits, no end, it is never done.
As a woman who has suffered years of abuse, there have been times in my new life when I have found myself living out Psalm 6:6.
There is just something about the idea of not being ‘under Law’ that sets off all kinds of alarms in the minds of many Christians.
Jesus was praying a Psalm. Psalm 22 to be precise, and both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark relay the story to us of Jesus praying that Psalm on the cross at the hour of His death.
This is the first of seven words of Christ from the cross.
Perhaps you’ve had a pastor or “Bible teacher” ask you these questions. If not, consider yourself blessed.