'The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.'
Soren Kierkegaard
Why Don’t We Know What Jesus is Like?
This week, I’ve been reading Bear Grylls beautiful and profound book about the life of Christ.
I strongly encourage you to buy it and read it again and again.
I am full of awe at what he has written and the depth of revelatory truth that he has communicated in these pages.
It has challenged and inspired me to think again deeply about the person of Jesus, and to try to communicate some thoughts that I hope might be of interest.
More than anything, it has made me wonder as I have so many times: Why is it that so many who claim to follow Jesus seem utterly unclear about who He really was and is; and what it means to truly walk with Him?
I’ve witnessed this puzzling reality many times over decades, and it’s one of the most staggering spiritual phenomena I know: a vibrant faith rooted in a figure so adored, yet missing the Biblical living, breathing, disruptive presence of Jesus Himself. This confusion isn’t accidental in my view; it’s part of a deeper story about how man-made religion has quietly reshaped the message and life of Christ into something far less radical, less intimate, and less freeing than what the Gospels reveal.
Let’s explore who Jesus really was, what He stood against, and why His life continues to unsettle the religious status quo.
In my twenties living in London, I had the opportunity to speak to a church youth group. These were committed young adults, fresh from working with a well-known Christian mission organisation. They were passionate, fired up, and eager to serve Jesus with their whole lives.
Curious, I asked them a simple but profound question:
“Who is Jesus to you? What is He like? What would it actually look like, in practice, to follow and serve Him?”
And then.. something astonishing happened.
Silence.
A blankness spread across the room. Genuine confusion. A few muttered vague, hesitant phrases, but the conversation quickly shifted elsewhere. The moment passed for them, but it never passed for me.
Over more than three decades, I have witnessed this again and again on my travels; a surprising phenomenon among people utterly convinced they are following Jesus:
A profound absence of Biblical revealed clarity about the real life, presence, and example of the living Christ.
I want to try to unpack this and invite you to test what I say carefully and exhaustively against Scripture.
You might find it surprising, perhaps even liberating.
John the Baptist - Announcing Wrath, Not Comfort
When John the Baptist enters the wilderness to announce Jesus’ arrival, something striking often gets overlooked.
John wears the garment of Elijah from 2 Kings - an unmistakable signal to Israel’s story.
His cry is urgent and unrelenting:
“Repent! Metanoia; think again, wake up, change your mind; because the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
Many people respond, are baptised, and prepare. But then, the religious leaders approach John, and his words to them are chilling:
“Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is coming?” (Matthew 3:7)
What wrath? ................. JESUS!
The wrath embodied in Christ, is not directed at the people, not at the poor or broken who are invited in.
It is a wrath reserved for religion itself - and Jesus is coming; sent by the Father.
At His divine announcement, by His anointed one sent to prepare the way; Jesus is revealed as God’s judgment against the religious system; a divine reckoning on religion as we know it.
Jesus Didn’t Come to Start Religion.. He Came to End It
Without this framing, it’s easy to fall into the default assumption that Jesus came to found a new religion for people to join. But what if the truth is the opposite?
What if Jesus came to fulfil, explode, and transform religion beyond recognition?
John the Baptist makes this clear from the very beginning. We just don't like it.
Jesus is not the founder of religion - He is its end.
Let me try to explain why.
The Birth - Outside the System
Jesus was not born in a palace or temple, not in safety or privilege.
He was born to a teenage girl in a borrowed room, surrounded by animals and dung.
The first to greet Him were shepherds - outsiders, unclean, marginalized.
God arrived not inside the religious or political machine; but outside it. And He is still outside it.
His Friends - The Wrong People
Jesus chose fishermen, zealots, tax collectors, not scribes or religious experts.
He ate with sinners, prostitutes, and the unclean; and never apologised for it. He let an unclean sex-worker massage and wash His feet with her tears. This scandalised the religious. Just as the person of Christ scandalises religious purity culture based on pride, always.
He didn’t try to “fix” the broken. He sat at their table.
Jesus was ready and able to call the beloved disciple; who became the foundation of his church, satanic.
He was real, and he confronted evil in His own intimate community head on when it was in opposition to His total coming vulnerability and Cross.
The same Jesus disciplines five-sevenths of His Bridal church in Revelation. God is never afraid to confront and discipline His people and call out their evil in the name of the Cross, and the narrow way of humility and dependance.
And in each and every historical revival, every one is always preceded by the churches humble openness to such discipline; which Jesus says is the mark of the Father 'who loves.'
Please read and test these things in church history.
His Enemies - The Religious Authorities
Jesus’ only consistent opposition was to the religious elite.
He called them vipers, whitewashed tombs, blind guides.
He healed on the Sabbath and let His disciples “break the rules,” defending them fiercely.
He wasn’t rebelling for rebellion’s sake; He was exposing the emptiness of religion without love.
His Anger - Directed at the Temple
The one time Jesus got physically angry and violent was in the Temple, the hub of religious administration.
He overturned tables, drove out sellers, and quoted prophets.
His wrath was never against sinners, but against those who made a business out of God.
His Silence - On Religious Performance
Jesus never said: “Go to synagogue more.”
He didn’t start new rituals or institutions.
Instead, He said things like:
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“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
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“Forgive.”
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“Love your enemy.”
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“Sell what you have.”
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“Become like a child.”
He invited people into a Kingdom based on relationship, not a religion of compliance.
His Death - Executed by Religious rage and conspiracy.
Jesus wasn’t killed by “bad people.”
He was executed by a lethal alliance of religion and His own trusted disciple, seeing Him as a threat.
He didn’t die to start Christianity.
He died to end the systems that crush and oppress the human soul. And those systems are still very much alive!
Are you fighting them with Jesus in your heart and community?
Jesus and the Temptation: Satan’s Core Weapon
In the wilderness, Jesus was tempted; not by pleasure or power; but by identity.
“If you are the Son of God…”
Satan tempted Him to see Himself as special, to prove Himself, to claim what was “rightfully His.”
This is Satan’s most productive weapon: getting people to believe that they are uniquely right and worthy.
It works just as well on Christian leaders today as it did in the desert. Believing that you have special authority, truth and most satanic of all, that you alone and your church and people hold the 'correct' doctrine.
It is an exceedingly convenient and astonishingly effective deception; that the Devil is working in other people and their sin.
But the Bible quite clearly and repeatedly saying the exact opposite. That the great satanic tool is our pride, our certainty and our desire for significance and ministry.
Satan’s Master Strategy: Ministry Itself
When all other temptations fail, Satan offers ministry; a shortcut to success, global influence, fame, and impact.
“All the kingdoms of the world I will give you, if you worship me.”
He doesn’t tempt with lust or violence here; he goes so much deeper.
He tempts with ministry. With influence. With gifting and reach.
And he still does this today.
Satan gladly gives succes, numbers, branding and followers, so long as it leads a person away from the intimacy of the Father
So long as it trades love for correct doctrine, pride and performance.
But God is still the God who says to Abraham: 'I Am your Inheritance, and your exceedingly Great reward'
The Satanic Church: Pride, Judgment, and Ministry
In my reading and work, I have learnt over the years that in the satanic church, the criteria for acceptance, success and leadership boil down to some crucial traits:
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Pride: believing you alone are uniquely right and judging all others.
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Judgment: believing everyone else is wrong
And most disturbingly:
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Coveting your own ministry.
Satanists fast and pray passionately for the furthering of their own ministry.
This is how spiritual power is hijacked.
Tragically, these same traits may be those most celebrated and preached in part of Christian leadership today.
Jesus: More Life Than Preacher
A staggering truth about Jesus is that He only preached publicly for about one eleventh of His life.
For the rest - ten elevenths - He lived quietly in community, with no stage, no spotlight, no sermons—just presence.
We often fixate on His miracles and teachings - but miss the revelation of His life.
He showed us how to be human - not through perfectionism - but through intimacy, humility, and vulnerability.
The Battle We Keep Ignoring
Jesus’ life tells an ongoing spiritual battle; not with Rome, but with religious pride and power.
It is impossible to follow the biblical Jesus without engaging in this spiritual warfare against institutional religion.
To deny this is to lie about Christ - and to suppress the true meaning of the Cross.
Start in Marks Gospel and test every one of these things.
Final Word: The Real Invitation
Jesus didn’t come to create a brand, doctrine, or ministry model.
He came to reveal the Father and announce a Kingdom of dependance and intimacy with Him.
To follow Him means resisting every force; especially religious ones; that steals that intimacy.
If there is one thing we can say with absolute certainty:
If we claim that we really believe the account and person of Christ in the Bible, we dare not pervert this truth:
Jesus life was wonderful news for sinners, and terrible news for religious people.
What about our lives?
How many broken people call you and I a true friend - and how many religious people fear, judge and are offended by us?
Are we really following Christ, or our feelings and flesh and opinion, and the religion that makes us feel good about ourselves?
Unpalatable and shocking right?
But the Gospel is unpalatable.
If it was fair and palatable, would you and I be accepted in and able to see ourselves as utterly pure?
And if we start to implement the True Way of Acts, it may just be be like a bomb going off in our lives.
The Offense of the Cross
I remember once hearing that John Wimber, the great preacher, used to say: If a preacher truly preaches and proclaims the biblical Cross, the clear sign is that the listeners will be offended.
CS Lewis, perhaps the greatest of all apologists, says that 'God is the Great iconoclast.' God is always destroying our fleshly idols, even when we have no idea that we have them within us and our ideology.
This “offense of the Cross,” as Paul calls it, is because the gospel clashes with human wisdom, logic, and convention.
Most of all, it offends the countless religious people who believe they can earn God’s favour through their ministry, good works and efforts.
To them, the Cross is blasphemy, because it says: You cannot earn salvation; you only receive it by grace. And you can only live it out by staying at the foot of a Cross.
Satan’s Ultimate Strategy: To Subtly Draw us Away from the Cross and into doctrine and ministry.
Man-made Religion is toxic because it whispers the lie that you can be enough, that you can earn it. That you are better than other people because of what you believe and your good works.
But the only true place of safety is at the foot of the Cross.
Satan will do all he possibly can to draw us from this place of dependence and vulnerability, and his best weapon just as it was in the temptation of Jesus, is ministry, doctrine and our own opinion and specialness.
Countless people I have talked to describe the colossal power and miracles they saw at the time of their testimony... that they now experience hardly at all?
Why?
Is the arm of the Lord shortened, or has our 'growth' into our own doctrinal comfort and complacence quenched the Spirit who can do abundantly and exceedingly more than all we ask or think?
This is why Paul describes the enemy we should resist not like a quiet serpent but like a 'roaring Lion'.
Because as Paul knew, the most visceral and crucial attacks would be on grounds that we should know,
and see him coming - the very basics of the Gospel:
Humility, vulnerability, and a daily, hourly Cross.
But we don't.
Jesus invites us to take up and stay always at the foot of His Cross, because He is humble and lowly and it is there that the power is in our lives and ministry. Not our gifts or our own righteousness. But in HIM.
It is at the Cross that we find rest and our burden being light - in suffering and in Joy.
By the cross, with our humble Master who carries all our burdens; because, unlike us - He is lowly in heart.
The Power of Grace
Jesus doesn’t call us to prove ourselves or strive harder.
He calls us to come to Him; to find rest in His humility and grace.
It is here that true freedom and true humanity are found and where He frees us and teaches obedience through love. 'The goodness of God leading to repentance.'
Even Paul, after decades of following Jesus, confessed he was the “worst of sinners” and that obedience comes only through grace, never works.
James, the brother of Jesus and chief strategist of the early church, says to the very leaders of the church; that 'we all stumble in many ways.'
John, the most beloved disciple, says that 'if we say we have no sin, then the truth is not in us and we deceive ourselves.'
Humility, vulnerability and total dependance on a CROSS, daily, hourly moment by moment.
The Call to Fight Religion and Embrace the Cross
To follow Christ fully is to fight against religion’s promises of self-sufficiency and performance.
It is to cling to the scandalous, offensive, and life-giving Cross; where grace, humility, and rest meet.
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to go back to the Scriptures and wrestle with these truths.
May you find the courage - wherever you are in fellowship - to bravely challenge any religious spirit that weighs heavy, finding life both in community and by the Cross.
Test These Things:
Following Jesus means stepping into a spiritual battle few are willing to name.
It means rejecting the comfort of religious performance, pride, and control, and embracing instead a scandalous, grace-filled way of life marked by humility, vulnerability, and intimacy with the Father.
The true Jesus is not the figure propped up by institutions or brands, but the living God who wars against religious power and calls us to a life of radical vulnerability at the foot of the cross.
This is the invitation; and the offense; that still transforms souls today.
To truly follow Him is to fight for that freedom, every day, in every part of our lives.
I hope that you will weigh, fast and pray about these things, and seek the Spirits witness and challenge.
My prayer is that you utterly reject everything above that does not resonate with that witness.
But my belief and conviction is that if the Bible is accurate, then the main battle will always be against the religion that rises up within us,
and within our churches and communities.
May we fight it together.
It might be the battle that defines the church and indeed the world that for our children, is to come.
John Richards.
July 2025
Read the book:
Daily Prayer or Meditation
1) Gratefulness: just express how grateful you are and list all the amazing things you have in your life and the people and gifts and things that God has given you.
2) Forgiveness: confess daily that you fall below Gods standard and that you know that you need a Cross and not a throne in your life. Express that your faith and identity is not in your self, your own righteousness - but in the Cross.
3) Requests: bring your needs to God and ask Him for help in 3 things each day. Lay them before Him and ask for Him to help you AND to show you where you need to let that thing go if it isn’t best for you.
4) Guidance: Confess that you DO NOT KNOW what is best for you. Ask God to protect you from your own plans and to close every door and relationship in your life that is not fruitful for you and to lead you to the people and things and path that HE has for you. Ask God to give you ears to hear and to speak to you in your dreams.
5) Ask God: What should I focus on and prioritise in myself in this season?
Give me ears to hear what i should prioritise TODAY.
Then, do not think about the past or about tomorrow. Live in that prayer TODAY, and shut off from all else.
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