The 25-year-old told Apple Music's Zane Lowe it was at this time that he decided to go "deep" into the Christian faith he had grown up with.
"I just didn't know what the heck was going on and so I really took a deep dive in my faith, to be honest, I just went deep," he said.
Going "deep" meant being honest about his faith up until that point. Bieber admits that while he "believed in Jesus" and that He had died on the cross for him, he wasn't living a life of obedience. never really ... When it says, following Jesus, it's actually turning away from sin," he said.
"What it talks about in the Bible, there's no faith without obedience. I had had faith about like, 'I believe Jesus died on the cross for me, but I never really implemented it into my life.' I never like, 'I'm gonna be obedient.'"
Part of that, he thinks, is because although he knew Christians, they were not good examples of what it meant to live out the faith.
"I had really bad examples of Christians in my life who would say one thing and do another, so they were there my direct example of who Jesus was. I didn't take it as seriously because I didn't have good examples," he said.
