Jeremy Anderson: ‘My Story Is the Epitome of Restoration’ (Profiled)

Jeremy J. Anderson spends most of his time pouring into other people to motivate them to think beyond their circumstances and to believe in God for the impossible. Anderson, 36, knows firsthand how God can suddenly turn things around when one least expects it.

“My story is the epitome of the story of restoration,” Anderson said.

Despite growing up in a Christian home and being elected class chaplain in high school, Anderson went astray during his time in college and kept God on the back burner for years afterward.

Instead of focusing on his faith, Anderson dedicated his time to pursuing drugs, alcohol, and women. After college, he excelled at his job at a car dealership. He soon found, however, that selling drugs and promoting clubs proved way more lucrative than his nine-to-five work. So he and his friends formed a group to do business.

“A lot of my guys in the group were in the music scene. I didn’t rap at all myself but was always in the studio when they do what they do. So I was there from the beginning. From the hustling to the dope dealing, I mean everything. I was right there in the mix,” he said.

Caught up in drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and fornication, Anderson seemed like a different person entirely to his family. Things got to the point where his father, a minister, shifted his prayers from asking God to protect his son, to asking God to make Anderson fail at anything he pursued that did not bring Him glory.

Pretty soon, Anderson found his sources of income dried up and himself in debt.

The catalyst that finally propelled him back to God was his grandmother, who called him one day and told him what he needed to hear.

“Not only can God restore you, not only will He forgive your sins, but God still wants to use you,” she told him during that pivotal call, he said in his mini-documentary.

Anderson believed her and came to Christ in 2009. Since then, he has been keeping himself at God’s disposal.

“I had to distance myself from the homies. That was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do. Because you want to kick it with them, but, you know, you’re trying to do something different and if you don’t do different, you don’t get different,” he told Faithfully Magazine.

Not long after his conversion, Anderson decided to get re-baptized, and his father did the honors. “That was the day the old Jeremy died and the new Jeremy was born again,” he said.

Anderson founded Next Level Living, a nonprofit through which he does speaking engagements at churches, seminars, and schools. His come-back story and fired-up perspective sometimes gets him invitations from administrators to address both the teachers and their students.

Anderson and his wife, who have a young daughter, also lead The Grace Tour. The ministry is composed of a diverse group of young people who bring encouragement and the good news to wherever they are called.