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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Scripture is clear: God’s Spirit pursues sinners from conception to the grave with his life-giving Gospel and gifts.
The Scriptural pictures of atonement offer every Christian comfort and hope against sin through the power of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
We all know that Jesus can save sinners, unbelievers, pagans and heathens, all of them great or small; sinners who have been very good at being sinners. You’ve likely seen it yourself or at least heard of it happening.
This plague is no new thing. A dreaded deformity of disobedience clung to every soul since Adam and Eve.
We don’t need another human to love us, so we become our own divinity full of self-directed, unconditional acceptance.
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Despite the death all around us, the death that is assured us, we know there is a way out.
I have this really terrible habit. A habit that involves my car and days-old coffee and a willpower so weak that nine out of ten coffee cups get left behind.
We surrender confidence in God because we lack faith in Christ, and we lack faith in Christ because we rebel against the fact that each, single moment of self-destruction is nailed to that cross.
The rich young ruler’s inquiry to the Lord Jesus in Mark 10:17–22 (along with Matt. 19:16–22; Luke 10:25–28) remains increasingly prescient for us today.
John’s message doesn’t inspire religious leaders to repent. Instead, John’s message provokes them to resentment and rage.