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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A while back, my wife and I attended the wake and memorial service of a friend from a prior church we attended.
Old Adam's works are good because he says they're good. End of conversation.
In those waters we are nailed to his cross and washed out the door of his tomb. Within his wounds we safely hide.
Still, sadly, many polls suggest that above 50% of Americans get their news from social media sites as opposed to actual news sites.
It’s strange that we’ll stuff our mouths today with a bird whose life preaches against us. For consider the turkeys, which neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
"What do you mean, 'Confess that I don't believe in God?' I'm a Christian. Of course I believe in God!"
Recently I’ve met many people that have suffered tragedies in their families. I know this sounds a little selfish, but the ones that stick out the most to me are the ones that affected my own family.
I don’t care why you left the ministry—moral failure, congregational politics, burnout, whatever—the Christ whom you proclaimed has not left you.
Hear that confession of saving faith? Rahab may have been a prostitute in Jericho, but she was secretly a virgin daughter of Yahweh.
The Garden of Eden proved to be the first battlefield between God and his submissive people.
You matter so much to God that he would rather die than lose you. You matter so much to Jesus that no suffering was too much, no deprivation too burdensome, no punishment too severe for him to endure to have you as his own.
Lose trust in the free grace of the righteousness of Christ alone, and the holiness of the Church and all in her is lost.