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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Only because He is an outsider can he afford the costly fee insiders could never afford no matter how hard they work.
On the cross, God removed the load of every single one of your sins and placed it instead on Christ. Then, He clothed you with the fullness of His holiness and perfection.
This is the sixth installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 11 and 12 by Caleb Keith.
I saw a beautiful picture of grace yesterday. A real bestowing of favor on someone less deserving.
Sehnsucht can echo the truth, but only Scripture reveals the God who experiences it.
For on the other side of the death of forgiveness is the resurrection of joy. An easter in which we emerge from the tomb in the arms of the man whose scars glow with mercy.
Whatever loss you’ve undergone, whatever grief resides in the hollow of your heart, however much it seems like God has abandoned you, God sees that void as the place he wants to fill with new life and mercy.
A father dies and leaves an inheritance to his two children, Jane and Grace. The family member handling the estate gives them each a letter containing the cheques for their inheritance.
The foundation of the Christian’s life is that our life is not our own. We don’t belong to ourselves. God has purchased us with the currency of Jesus’s blood.
The only obedient son is shunned so that the disobedient one may return. Why? Because God loves sinners. He doesn’t leave them alone.
Marriage is the ideal school in which to learn that we are not the center of the universe. We’re not created to live for ourselves. We find our true humanity only when we live for other people.
Never has the law fallen so hard on me as in motherhood. Never before was I more aware that my best wasn’t good enough.