Avowed Christian Justin Bieber recently opened up about the many issues he struggled to overcome before finding faith in Jesus Christ.
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to promote his album “Changes,” Bieber talked about how faith in Christ eventually led him to obedience in sin.
“I really took a deep dive in my faith,” Bieber said, as reported by Fox News. “I believed in Jesus but I never really, like…when it says following Jesus is actually turning away from sin, and so there’s no, it talks about it in the Bible, there’s no faith without obedience.”
Though Bieber always believed in who Jesus was and accepted his death on the cross to save humanity from sin, he “never really implemented it” in his life, he said. When he allowed faith to penetrate his heart, Bieber claims he turned his life around. The difficulty for him, however, was overcoming the bad examples of Christians in his life, who he said would “say one thing and do another.”
“I think it was my perception of who Jesus really was,” he said. “I’d had really bad examples of Christians in my life, who would say one thing and do another, so they were my direct example of who Jesus was.”
“The way I look at God and my relationship with Jesus is I’m not trying to earn God’s love by doing good things,” he continued. “God has already loved me for who I am before I did anything to earn or deserve it. It’s a free gift by accepting Jesus, giving your life to him, and what he did is the gift. The forgiveness is the thing that we look at and we go, you know, I’m going to worship you, God, because you gave me something so good.”
Though Bieber has no desire to tell people what to believe, he does want to use his story of faith to persuade others to find Christ.
“Jesus wasn’t this religious elite guy…but he was in the dirt, and he found me in my dirt and pulled me out,” Bieber said. “I never want to be someone that’s trying to persuade anyone to believe in what I believe. I think God persuades people. But I definitely want to tell my story so that if that resonates with anybody they can hopefully learn from it.”
Watch the video below. Bieber’s remarks about Christ begin around the 10-minute mark:
Justin Bieber began opening up about how faith in Jesus altered his life after marrying his wife, Hailey Baldwin. Speaking with Vogue last year, Bieber confessed to giving up sex for a year, admitting he had a “legitimate problem” with premarital relations.
“He doesn’t ask us not to have sex for him because he wants rules and stuff,” Bieber told Vogue. “He’s like, I’m trying to protect you from hurt and pain. I think sex can cause a lot of pain.”
The pop star went on to say that premarital sex often serves as a crutch for people who are making up for a lack of perceived self-worth, adding that he wanted to “rededicate” his body to God to cleanse his soul.
“Sometimes people have sex because they don’t feel good enough. Because they lack self-worth,” Bieber said. “Women do that, and guys do that. I wanted to rededicate myself to God in that way because I really felt it was better for the condition of my soul. And I believe that God blessed me with Hailey as a result. There are perks. You get rewarded for good behavior.”