After turning my life over to God, I became OOOOONNNN FIRE for Jesus!   You know when you look at fire and its different colors?   Some of the hottest spots are the blue flames. That is where I was.  I felt like dynamite but I also realized that many things in my world would have to change. I went on a sabbatical for at least 6 months from my not so Jesus centered friends whom I love so much. I’m close with several of them to this day.  They truly respect me for my Christian beliefs and several of them have actually come to know the Lord since that time.

I found some new friends from church and school that were like me- totally on FIRE for the Lord!  We would have such fun on the weekends but would ALWAYS start our evening time praying together and reading the Word together.  Sometimes God would SO be in the room with us we would feel like we were floating off the ground.  It was insane!  We would have such a good time, go out to eat, be crazy and reckless, lots of practical jokes, in essence, do things that regular teenagers do! But our foundation was the BIBLE. One thing we all agreed on was that if the Bible says to do it than we’ve got to do it, nothing more and nothing less. Let’s be radical for Jesus! And it was so easy to do with a fire burning so strong!

My new core group of friends also operated on the Go Big or Go Home mentality.  The Bible talked about this great Commission of going out, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, saving people and making disciples.  One night my friend Joey looked at me and said, “Zach, we need to start evangelizing, we need to start telling people about Jesus!”   I quickly answered, “Yeah, we need to do that.” And he said, “No, Zach! We need to do it NOW!”  It was very clear to me that he was right. “You know what Joey; we do need to do it now.” So what did we do? Starting that Saturday, and every single weekend after that, we began evangelizing at the malls in Decatur, Illinois.

It was crazy!   People were getting saved left and right in the middle of the mall.  I’m not talking about, “Here say this prayer, peace and see you later.”  I’m talking about people that were breaking down in the middle of the malls crying, giving their lives to Jesus!  Hearts like mine that had been searching and were now filled with joy!  Thank you Jesus! Thank you Lord! Thank you God!  It was an incredible experience.  We kept going to the mall every Saturday in Decatur until we ended up getting kicked out. A gentleman from a much different faith that owned a kiosk at the mall, found out what we were doing and told a security guard that we were soliciting.  So I guess in a small way we suffered for the gospel that day. Apparently that business owner wasn’t aware of the power of God, as his business went OUT of business very soon after.

After much prayer and discussion we knew we were not supposed to quit!  We realized there was a mall about an hour away.   Once again, every, single Saturday we started driving that hour to a town called Champagne, Illinois.  So many people got saved there.  There would be nights when there would literally be 20 salvations in one single night. That was the start of my evangelizing journey, a time in my life I would never trade for anything!  There are so many amazing stories that led me to where I am today, nearly seven years later.  But, this was the beginning of an incredible Adventure for Jesus that I’m STILL living today!

God had a plan for me.  He has a plan for you too!  But may I make a suggestion?  When God give you a mission, when He sets you on the path he has for you… do yourself a big favor…

Go Big or Go Home!!