Hopefully making theology simpler to understand! (2 Corinthians 1:12)

One evening in 2025, I was driving down a road in town that had recently gone through work expanding the road and adding a median. At one point there is a place for northbound cars to make a u-turn.

I was approaching this section of road heading south, and up ahead I saw someone get into the u-turn lane. He then proceeded north on my side of the road.

Needless to say, I stopped and flashed my lights, and he realized the problem and quickly turned around (in an awkward 4-point maneuver.)

False U-turns

It got me thinking about the Church, and it was controversy over the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show and it’s alternative from TPUSA as well as Jelly Roll’s Grammy acceptance speech that brought back to mind. Some question Jelly Roll’s and Kid Rock’s repentance and Christian faith.

We often teach how repentance is like a u-turn in our life, and there is good reason.

Acts 3:19, HCSB
Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord

Proverbs 28:13, HCSB
The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

How many people make a false u-turn?

How many fall into the “easy believism” of saying a simple prayer and never changing the way they live?

I don’t know what is going on in the hearts and souls of Kid Rock and Jelly Roll, and this is not really about them.

I am also not saying anything about anyone in particular. This a call for each of us to make sure that we have not made a false u-turn, that we said we believe in Jesus but never changed anything about the way we think or act.

2 Corinthians 13:5, HCSB
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless you fail the test.

It would be like that car that used the u-turn lane but was then heading toward oncoming traffic, only we would get to the end of our life or see Christ return only to hear Him say He never knew us and we miss eternal life.

Matthew 25:44-46, HCSB
“Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help You? ’ “Then He will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me either.’ “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

So, don’t complain about what people claiming Christ may or may not be doing.

Examine yourself to know you are in the faith.

You might be with those going the right way, but you might be going the wrong way and endangering others.