11 Times Justin Bieber Was Pure Wisdom in the 'Complex' Interview
/By Fallon Prinzivalli and Marilette Sanchez
In case you hadn't heard yet, it seems Justin Bieber has really turned over a new leaf. Don't believe us? Check out the 11 nuggets of wisdom about life, love and God that Justin dropped on us in the recent Complex Magazine interview.
photo credit: David black for complex magazine
1. He doesn't regret his poor choices.
I was doing so many things that I shouldn’t even be on the planet still. I think that it was by the grace of God. The whole time, [Bieber’s manager] Scooter [Braun] always made sure I was safe and made sure situations didn’t escalate. He’d fix every situation. It almost wasn’t good, because I’d be like, any time I wanna do something, Scooter is gonna take care of it. It backfired a few times. It’s been a cool journey, an awesome learning experience. I wouldn’t take back anything. I wouldn’t do anything over again. I would do it all the same way. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for the things that I’ve done because I think that it allows me to tell a story. If I would’ve came into the industry at a young age and never had any failures, people would’ve been like, Who is this kid? He’s not relatable. Now, I went through my s**t, I came out on the other side, and I’m going to show you it gets better.
Faith Takeaway: Use your sin/past to build your testimony.
2. He had to cut people out of his life.
It wasn’t like I was cutting them off like, this person’s toxic. I could be around that person and not do that stuff because the stuff I do is not who I am [...] When you get famous, you get people that will encourage whatever you do. You’ll do something and they’ll be like, 'That was dope, Justin!' When you’re young especially, you don’t know who’s [BS-ing] you. I’m gonna make sure that I don’t have people around me who make me look like an idiot. You don’t understand—that’s a normal thing for human beings, but I never had that in my life. I didn’t even have that with my parents. I think they just didn’t know how. We never built the right relationships. Now I’m having real relationships where it’s two ways. I didn’t understand how that works because the way people would interact with me was always so weird and it was never completely 100 percent genuine.
Faith Takeaway: Surround yourself with other believers, especially those who aren’t afraid to call you out on your crap. This is part of the reason why going to church is so important.
3. He wants to back up his words with action.
I want people to start seeing me and feel like they can connect with me. I’ve made myself so unrelatable the past year with all the stuff that I was doing. Not even bad stuff sometimes, just outrageous stuff...I could say it over and over again, I’m changing and doing this with my life, but unless they start seeing something tangible like, “Oh he’s helping this person; he would’ve never said something like this a year ago; he would’ve never taken responsibility for something like that a year ago, but now he’s actually being a man about it and understanding commitment, understanding the value of time, understanding the value of people.
Faith Takeaway: Have integrity and follow through on what you say. As Jesus said, "Let your yes be yes, and your no be no."
4. He views love as a choice.
"Love is a choice. Love is not a feeling. People have made it seem in movies that it’s this fairy tale. That’s not what love is. You’re not gonna want to love your girl sometimes but you’re gonna choose to love her. That’s something in life that I had to figure out."
Faith Takeaway: Stay committed to your loved ones through life’s ups and downs. Most of us are quick to say we’ve fallen out of love with our spouse or our significant other, and then get a divorce or break up. But when you choose to marry someone (who hopefully has the same Christian values as you) you need to wake up and choose to love them everyday, though good and bad.
5. He found his identity in Christ instead of his girlfriend.
We were so in love. Nothing else mattered. We were all about each other. But when it’s like that and you get your value from that, people will always disappoint you. Your girl or your dude, they’re always going to disappoint you. Your full identity can’t be in that person. My identity was in her. Her identity was in me. When stuff would happen, I would lose my freakin’ mind, and she would lose her mind, and we would fight so hard because we were so invested in each other...I can’t lean on people. I got to lean on God. I gotta trust in him through all my situations. Then, hopefully, my other relationships will flourish around me. But if I’m gonna be so invested in you, if you die, or something happens to you, I’m gonna be so destroyed, I won’t be able to go on. If I can love you and know that I’m not who I am because you’re being nice to me, but that I love you and I think you’re an incredible person but you’re just as broken as I am on the inside. We’re all just trying to figure it out.
Faith Takeaway: Trust God and make Him first in your life. He wants us to have good relationships, but they need to be built on God and your relationship with Him first.
6. He knows that science does not contradict the Bible.
Science makes a lot of sense. Then I start thinking—wait, the “big bang.” For a “big bang” to create all this is more wild to think about than thinking about there being a God. Imagine putting a bunch of gold into a box, shaking up the box, and out comes a Rolex. It’s so preposterous once people start saying it.
Faith Takeaway: Remember that all truth is God’s truth. Don’t be afraid to explore your doubts and do your own research. Jesus said: “I am the truth” and He is bigger than your doubts. Still think belief in God and scientific knowledge are mutually exclusive? Here’s a great place to start.
7. He understands that being a Christian doesn’t mean you’re perfect.
If we can understand that we’re all imperfect, let’s come to God and come for his help. You’re not weak by doing that. I think that’s a common [misconception] of Christians, that you’re being weak because you can’t handle it. None of us can handle this world, dude! It’s eating us alive. But, man, I don’t wanna have to do it on my own. I know for sure my parents can’t give me all that I need. I know that my friends can’t give me all that I need. There’s something missing. That’s why I think Christians do that. [...]
Christians leave such a bad taste in people’s mouths, even myself. I was like, I’m not gonna go to church. I had these church friends and I was like, you guys are cool, I like you guys, but I’m not going to church [...] It doesn’t make you a Christian just by going to church. I think that going to church is fellowship, it’s relationship, it’s what we’re here on the earth to do, to have this connection that you feel there’s no insecurities. I think that’s where we need to be. Like I said, you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn’t make you a taco.
Faith Takeaway: Don’t pretend to have it all together. Don't be afraid to ask God for help. When you’re weak, then you are strong.
8. He understands that Christianity is a loving, personal relationship with God, not a list of do’s and don’ts.
It’s like a girlfriend. If I have an awesome, bomb girlfriend, I’m gonna wanna show her off and go around and tell people my girl is the s**t. I’m not gonna cheat on her because she’s the best. It’s like with God: The whole thing with religion is you present yourself holy and bring your offerings so that God can bless you, when the whole point of the relationship [should be], “No, I’m gonna do this because he loves me. I’m gonna do this because he’s amazing and not because [I] have to, [but] because [I] want to.” That’s the whole thing with religion that’s been throwing off the people. It’s not a “have to.” It should be just like a personal relationship. Like, “Hey, I love you because you first loved me.”
Faith Takeaway: Don’t try to fix yourself up before approaching God. He loves you where you are now. He can’t love you any more or any less than he does now.
9. He’s not ashamed of his faith.
I’m tired of putting on a mask and a show for these people. I’m just gonna be myself and if they don’t like it, they don’t like it. I move on. I can just trust that God got this under control. That’s where I’m at. I’m the type of dude who always wants to figure it out...At this point, my faith has gotten me to where I am. My faith has brought me to a whole other level. I love talking about my faith. I think that with Christians, they’ve left such a bad taste in people’s mouths. Just like, overly pushy with the subject, overly churchy and religious.
Some people are bad communicators. They find something that works so well for them and they wanna share it, but they don’t know how to share it so they’re kind of pushy. There’s a lot of really weird stuff going on at churches. You ever flicked on a channel and a late-night church show is on? Sometimes it’s like, “You better do this or you gon’ die and you gon’ burn in hell!” And you’re like, I don’t want anything to do with this. I’m the same way. I’m not religious. I, personally, love Jesus and that was my salvation. I want to share what I’m going through and what I’m feeling and I think it shouldn’t be ostracized [...] My voice, I’m not gonna let it not be heard anymore. I’m gonna use my voice for a reason. I think that people, as soon as they start hearing me saying I’m a Christian, they’re like, “Whoa Justin, back up, take a step back.” Also, I do not want to shove this down anyone’s throat [...] This is it. It’s time that we all share our voice. Whatever you believe. Share it. I’m at a point where I’m not going to hold this in.
Faith Takeaway: Be who you are and use your voice and influence to make Jesus famous. (Romans 1:16)
10. God makes him feel invincible.
I feel invincible like, nothing is bigger than God. If God’s for me, who can be against me? That’s helped me in a lot of situations where I feel judged. It gives you confidence and you can carry yourself in a cool way, but it’s not cocky. It’s a confidence that’s a godly confidence. That’s what I always want. I wanna be loved for being a good dude and for being confident in myself because I know who I am and what I carry and what I sacrifice.
Faith Takeaway: You can be confident in who God made you to be, without being cocky. False humility (putting yourself down) is not true humility.
11. He wants to live like Jesus.
I just wanna honestly live like Jesus. Not be Jesus—I could never—I don’t want that to come across weird. He created a pretty awesome template of how to love people and how to be gracious and kind. If you believe it, he died for our sins. Sometimes when I don’t feel like doing something, but I know it’s right, I remember, I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t feel like going to the cross and dying so that we don’t have to feel what we should have to feel. What Jesus did when he came to the cross was basically say, “You don’t have to feel any of that stuff.” We could take out all of our insecurities, we could take away all of the hurt, all the pain, all the fear, all the trauma. That doesn’t need to be there. So all this healing that you’re trying to do, it’s unnecessary. We have the greatest healer of all and his name is Jesus Christ. And he really heals.
Faith Takeaway: No commentary necessary.
Don’t forget, Justin’s latest album “Purpose” drops on November 13. Pre-order here.
Cover art for justin bieber's "purpose" album. scheduled release date: november 13, 2015.
