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 Lutheran Reformation was a reformation of the Christian imagination alongside its theology.
So bondage meets freedom, and God becomes our Master through Christ.
We are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Losers set free to trust in God’s promises.
When we are unsure of who God is, it’s to Christ that He tells us to look.
God created Israel to be the vessel into which he would place both his Law and his Son.
Rather than presenting Christ’s words as a rule or a threat, Luther reveals it to be the promise of God.
These teachings are the heart of the Reformation…If it is about you, it isn’t about Jesus.
The power and the purpose of the Reformation was to bring the full force of the Law and the Gospel to the ears of sinners.
The Christian who understands Gospel-based love recognizes the false promises and rewards of the Playboy Mansion.
Conflict demands resolution, tension demands a balancing act in the face of uncertainties.
By focusing intently on what one wants to avoid, we often crash right into the moral hazard we are trying to evade.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.