272- Connecting Faith and Technology in the Digital Age with JR
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Welcome, everyone, to Politically High Tech with your host, Elias. This is going to be the second episode of the new season. And what I like about this one is we combine two things that I focus, I would say, pretty intensely. And I'm going to change the order on purpose. I mean, I say tech, thank God. But if you're going to be honest, God should be first place. I kind of bend that rule. If you're going to be honest, God should be first place.

if I'm going to be honest. So he could condemn me later, discuss here. He could eventually burn me in hell for that. He's not going to do that. So for his calm and looking very happy there. But all seriousness, we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about a huge tech part. And of course, a lot of godliness, both of them combined.

I'm perfectly fine with that, even though some of you could say this could be a development episode. Yes, but I want enough people in that category. I want someone more tech. You could combine that. You could combine politics if you want. To me, it makes the brand more cohesive, if you want to be honest. Enough of that. We're not going to care about categorization or that. And I'm the host. You have to deal with this. So that part, I'm a proud authoritarian. Just deal with this. It's going to be tech. Just deal with it.

You can argue all you want. You can yell at me. You can troll. You can make fun of me. It's not going to change a thing. I'm going to be like a rock. I'm not going to bulge. Maybe with the exception of a huge wave washing over me. That's the only way. It has to be a huge wave. And that's all I'm going to say about that. And, you know, you bring up a good point. It's a valid point. But that's not important here. Let's get to the real content and more premium stuff, okay?

We got J.R. Johnny. J.R. Johnny Ronnie. It rhymes. Hey, it's pretty cool. I got a name rhymes. I wish I had a name that rhyme a little bit. I could have done more brandable stuff with it. But here I am. My parents didn't think that. So here here I am. Maybe I can legally change it. But do I want to spend money to do that? Maybe. Maybe. That's a big maybe.

I'm not going to say yes or no, but maybe. Yeah, his name rhymes. OK, but we're going to call him J.R. for short. I think he's comfortable with J.R. right there. I see it in the screen. And his ministry is called, before I have him introduce himself, it's a brush fires ministry. You know, I think you can feel free to correct me if this is his ministry.

I'm sure as a reference of Moses with the flaming bush, that mystical event that, you know, scientists just can't believe and carnal minded people. People just think what's physical only, even though we are spiritual. There's a lot of things that happen that we cannot see, like perception. I mean, you'll see it, but you know it because your phone tells you.

You know, there's no string or anything like that that tells you, oh, oh, look, this is a great reception here. No, your phone tells you because it feels it. That's invisible, right? No, that's because it's invisible. It doesn't mean it's not real. That's got to a most degree became manifest some physical way. Of course, of course he can. He's done it through Jesus at one point, you know, and, you know,

God is omnipotence. Okay. I'm just going to say it like that. And you got to get rid of that literal thing. You just understand them. But all right. Enough of my yappery. I'm pretty sure people want to hear this guest right now. So we got the founder, the founder. Look, I can't even talk to founder.

The El Jefe, the boss, the president of this digital ministry, JR. Thanks, Elias. I appreciate the intro. And I look forward to talking to you and to, you know, indirectly to your audience. No problem. Trust me, a lot of people do pay attention to God and all that. They're pretty receptive. So they're not the most...

Stiff-necked, stubborn people, my audience. I tend to retract those, which is a good thing because I wanted that audience. So good. I'm doing something right. Because I believe in God. I have interviewed atheists. I don't mind talking to them. I don't agree with them, but I don't mind talking to them.

But in the previous episode, well, actually one of the later episodes, I'm going to talk to an atheist person who came from a junkie to judge. So pay attention to that. That's next episode. But.

Let's get to this digital ministry. And let's, I mean, let's talk about you here. Forget about me. I'll be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, long enough. So what do you want the listeners and viewers to know about you? That's the first question. Well, to be true to what we teach in our ministry, I am a born again son of the most high God.

The goal is to figure out what God created you for and to begin to pursue that as a course of life. One of the very first things that you have to do is to see yourself as his son or as his daughter. Until you can do that, you're not really ready for what it is that he wants to do through your life.

In simple, I am born again son of the Most High God. I'm the founder of the Brush Fires Mini Ministry. I'm also the founder of RLA, a software development company that creates distribution, manufacturing, accounting software. I am the father of three. I'm the father of five. And husband of my wife, Buffy, for this August will be 46 years. Let me just chime in right there. He has beaten Martin...

marriage odds already. A lot of them came in last year. I'd say it's sad. The divorce rates, breakup rates have way outpaced stable marriages. I'd say it's quite sad. I think that's the kind of family and unity and wisdom and maturity and caring about the collective and that's as collective as look out for the nuclear family at least. Because we got too many options who our potential mate could be.

And we don't want to compromise. I want what I want. I don't care what you want. I mean, that's just the basic, basic, basic premise of why a lot of them just all last.

It's got to go beyond you. And, you know, American culture is very individualistic, which is a big conflict as well as a cultural aspect to it. You know, other cultures are very collective. They look out for the group, the tribe. America, well, that's more like an extra. It's more about the individual. But I'm not a marriage counselor. I'm not remarried. So who am I?

But I can tell you, American culture has made that even more difficult, especially our rampant use of this. And I'm going to quote this from my finance teacher, the weapon of mass distraction, this thing here. Yep. No, I agree with you. I agree with you completely about that. The thing about marriage is that there are so many misconceptions of what it is. You need to get to...

the source of what God created marriage to be all about. And it's not 50-50 like some kind of business partnership. It's 100% to 100% is whatever the gifts of the husband brings to the relationship is available to the wife. Whatever gifts that the wife brings to the relationship is a gift to the husband. And when they can see themselves as one, which is what

the Bible says, now you've got a chance of actually having a godly, sustainable relationship. My wife has partnered with us at every step of the way. When I started the software company, I was working 16-hour days, six days a week. And part of that was

you know, coming back home and doing payroll and doing accounting so that we had the books done. And at some point during that process, she goes, hey, can I help? Now, she's never been in a bookkeeper. She was never working in an office. But since I wrote accounting software and understood it, I said, yeah, let me teach you how to do payroll.

And once she got payroll done, then it was like, okay, let me teach you how to do the books. And so slowly over time, she took over all that weight off my shoulders. So I could stay focused in on doing what it is that we were doing in creating that software. So what you want in a good, solid family relationship or marriage is

from God's perspective, is that two people that are all in for the betterment of what you guys are bringing to the whole. So you want to both be dedicated to the development of each other and to be selfless in many ways when you're doing that. So yeah, the world's perspective of marriage is all messed up. Go back to the author who created marriage, and then you might get closer to the

to having a successful relationship. Yep. You're not intended to lead to marriage, but that's still a big problem. It's not talked about. It's not sexy. It's not attractive to talk about it, but it's a truth. And that's how God is. God does not care if it's the most trendiest topic, but it's about what's important, what his intentions was when he designed humans and this lovely earth, heaven,

You don't care about algorithm, what the algorithm was. God cares about humans united together under his name. That's more important. Most algorithms are not going to talk about that unless the priest has done something that is wrong and controversial. That's when algorithm cares.

Right. But anything to discredit God is what the world system is going to highlight. And anything that gives God glory or honor is going to be ignored. And that's just the nature of our culture as it is in the world in its entirety.

The thing is, is that what we're all searching for is that sense of joy and fulfillment. Every child of God knows that they were created for something special. That there's more to this life than what they've settled for. That they aren't the world's trash can or the world's dumpster. That they were actually created for something good. And that's what our ministry does. We help them figure out what it was that God created you for.

to do what He wants you to become. And then we encourage you through our disciple framework to be able to see how to begin to achieve that. And so the nature of Brushfire's ministry is to reach out to every one of God's children and show them how they were created to make an impact in this world. And by doing so, we show them the path to experience joy and fulfillment and

because it's not about the world's lies, because the world does lie to you, all the time.

It's about God's truth and how he created you and what he wants to do through you. And so we have an answer to help people discover that and to become who God created them to be. And that's the whole nature of the Brush Fires ministry. Well, that's great. And one thing you said that I had the impression of Ray, that it's a very, it's a digital ministry. So using a computer and internet.

And that's just about anywhere, maybe except for probably some off the grid locations or somewhere where the reception of the Wi-Fi is bad. That's your limitation. You could do it in your living room, your bedroom. I don't know, maybe you do it while you're in the coffee shop.

Right. Yeah.

Whatever it happens to be, because of the digital platform allows them to do it. But more importantly, what we found out is that the information that we share in one of our videos, and there's eight sessions of our video series, it's so new to most people that they need time to sort of digest it. It's like, what did he say?

And then they can rewind the video, listen to it again, pause it, think about it, pray about it, contemplate, consider what that actually means, what the implications in their life, how other people would relate to it. And then they can continue on. So it can be done at your own pace.

What we go through is we talk about people's conflict and designs. What is it about Elias that bugs other people and then is really attractive to other people? It could be the exact same attribute that certain people are repelled by and other people are attracted by.

The enemy exploits these differences in our design. The nature of what we do is both spiritual and scientific. We use the science of psychometry, which is God created you a certain way. And you say, well, JR, most of the world doesn't believe that, or a lot of the world doesn't believe that. I go, really?

Well, have you ever heard of assessments like Myers-Briggs or DISC or Gallup Strengths? Every one of those assessments are psychometric in the science behind it. So if you are a 15-year-old and you have an interest in things that are risky, you're still going to have that risk element in your life at 75.

Now, you might not be jumping off stairs on a skateboard at 75, but you'll still be taking things that the rest of the world will call risky. That's what psychometry says, is that this is how God created you. Figure out what he created you, how he created you, what's the best use of

of that tool in God's hands and begin to say yes to the opportunities that he presents to you that are consistent with that sort of tool. So psychometry has been around a long time. The assessments that we use were developed by a born again believer. So they're all faith inspired by people of faith.

but they are agnostic. There's no Christianese in the actual assessments themselves. So they've been used in the corporate world at IBM and Coca-Cola and Clorox and all these multinational organizations for decades. It wasn't until I partnered with the developer to bring them to the Christian world have they been available to the general public. And so Brushfire's ministry, again, we've

We tie science and spirituality because who is the author of science? It's God himself. I have said that before, and I felt crazy for saying it. I mean, he's the original creator. We are just figuring out how to piece these things together. God already foreseen all of these inventions way before we even thought about it. I mean, we talk about it's immeasurable how long ago it is, okay?

You know, and, you know, these computers and all of that, let's just say, and I was got to put something specific, even though it's way before that. God was already ahead of a lot of these things. He's healthy, like health and eating clean and all that. The Bible talks about that. But sadly, we need science to confirm that, say that, oh, God is right. Of course he is.

And don't get me wrong, I used to be foolish and pretend to be agnostic because I used to be mad at God that he let my father die until I had a better understanding why it happened. Eating clean, you know, not eating like a pig, gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. That's a big problem in America.

That's why we obese is why COVID really hit us real bad. It's not because of the virus. It's just because we was already unhealthy prior to that. So that's why I think the death toll was high in this nation. It could have been lowered if we were definitely more healthier. But that's a whole nother conversation for another day. I don't want to derail that. Let's talk about the stick to God and goodness.

and all of that. I'm not denying reality, but I'm just keeping focused on why we have this guest here. Well, so getting back to that, what God has for you is going to be the most joy-filled things that you've ever experienced. One of the things that people sort of like, all right, well, I don't know that I want to discover my ministry or, you know, who are you, you know, to even talk about that or to promote that. Here's the thing. Bible says, Ephesians 2.10, you were created for good works.

Well, obviously the work that Elias was created for and the work that I was created for are not the same. We're not gifted the same way. We're not designed the same way. So that message is unique to every believer that's out there. If you are living a life that is outside of the harmony of what God created you to do, you're going to have...

discordant types of reactions. You're going to be like out of tune with life. And so even though you might be doing what the world is telling you to do and in tune with the world, you're out of tune with the spiritual truth of what God created you for. And so it's not until you start to make the choices that will

align your life with what God created you to do, will you begin to find that harmony and joy? I'll give you an example that all mothers can relate to. We have three kids, and so I watched my wife go through the pregnancy process and delivery process of all three kids. It's painful.

It's difficult on a woman's body. It is something that is intimately so personal that a man can never really understand because we don't have that growing living life inside of us. But after all that struggle, after all the pain of delivery, after all of that, you put that healthy body, baby in that mother's arms, you see joy demonstrated.

Why is that? God is the author of life. He created that mother, and he created that baby that came from that mother. He knows exactly what he wants to do with that mother, and he knows exactly what he wants to do with that baby. One of the most important things for that lady who has given birth is to bring that new life into this world. So when

Her life choices coincide with, yes, God, I'm going to bring this child into this world. I'm going to go through the pain of pregnancy. I'm going to go through the pain of delivery. I'm going to go through all that fear and uncertainty. But when you put that healthy baby in the mother's arms, it's joy. All the pain's forgotten.

all the labor and struggle for nine months, all that is completely washed away at that moment because she has accomplished one of the most important things that she will ever accomplish. And God is saying, well done, daughter.

You did what I created you to do. One of the things that I want people to get a grasp of is that joy is waiting for every one of us. I'll never have a baby, but I can do the things that God created me to do. I can be involved in counseling and coaching people to become who God created them to be.

which gives me great joy when I get to participate in that process. I can coach people to become who God created them to be, which produces great joy. There's a real distinction between happiness and joy, and a lot of people don't understand this. Happiness is dependent upon the circumstances around you. So if you're safe, if you've got a full belly, if you are warm, if you have all this creature comforts that you need in life,

then you can be happy at that moment. But if any of those are not quite to your liking, now you're not happy. Joy is different. Joy is not dependent upon the circumstances that you are in. Joy is based upon your relationship with God and what it is that He is currently accomplishing through your obedience. Joy is the outcome of being obedient to God's call.

So, what gets in our way? Sin. Sin is a cheap, addictive substitute for what joy delivers. Sin promises things that it can never deliver. Sin can deliver a euphoria of sex outside of wedlock. Okay? What does that bring? Well, that brings breakup and heartache and so forth in many cases.

It creates soul ties with the individuals that they spiritually don't understand that they have been tied spiritually to that individual. Drugs can give you euphoria for a moment, but the next time you need a little bit more, and the next time you need a little bit more. That's the addictive nature of sin. It is intended...

Sin's object is to enslave the individual to the enemy's purposes. The more you get into it, the more enslaved you are to it, and the more you are controlled by the author of sin, which is Satan. Joy...

is invigorating, it's life-giving, it's fulfilling, it's contagious. It will spread to other people. It is addictive, but like the same way that your breathing is addictive. It is something that is so innately personal that you will feel a moment of euphoria, a moment of closeness with your creator that you've never experienced before. One of the tricks that the enemy wants is for people not to pursue joy

but to pursue sin. Why? Sin can enslave you. Joy will free you from that slavery. It's that simple. We have the opportunity to be able to show people how to experience joy by being obedient to God's calling in their life and to do it without leaving their intelligence at the door, for them to have that confirmation that God is actually their author of their life and to prove the point. That's what we do. No, I like that because for some reason,

A lot of the ignorant, but be kind, like to separate intelligence and joy for following God's call. I'll say it's kind of a clever trick that the devil does to confuse us. And that's why a lot of us don't follow the intended path. And I would say even me included to some degree. I mean, look, we all fall short for the glory of God. Even if you're a pastor,

Yeah, we're not looking at sinlessness. That's an impossibility. That's going to happen. But when sin happens in the life of an obedient child of God, they know that they can go to their dad and say, Dad, I messed up. Sorry. Would you please forgive me? If I need to reconcile that with somebody else because I've sinned against them, then I should have the humility to go to them and say, What I did to you was wrong. Will you please forgive me to restore that relationship?

But there is no sin that's going to separate you from the love of God. And so you always have that access to go back to God and restore that relationship and to get healed from the damage that sin created in you or the relationships that you have in this world. So yeah, you're going to mess up.

It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And when you mess up, you restore, you learn, you try not to repeat the same mistake, and you recognize it for what it was. It was an attempt of the enemy to prevent you from a closer relationship with God and his people. And when you start to—one of the things I love about people from back East—

As Elias and I were talking about earlier, my family's from Philadelphia and you're from New York. One of the things that my dad taught me, and my dad was not a Christian man, about he says, you don't want to be anybody's sucker or their putz or their fool. And a lot of people don't understand that, that, you know, are other parts of the country.

But you don't want to be manipulated and taken advantage of by other people. That's what the city teaches you. The city teaches you real early on that people are going to take advantage of you and you need to be aware of that so you're not their, as I said, putz. The enemy is the master of all putzes. He is going to manipulate you if you allow him to.

He's going to say, you can just have one drink. I know you've been clean for eight months, but don't worry about that. You've got that lick. Now just have a beer. A beer is not going to hurt you. Well, if you've just gone through eight months of sobriety and it's taking you 15 years to get to that place, that one beer could be all it takes to get you right back where you were into addiction. So the enemy is a liar. He is going to want you to be his putts. He is going to want to manipulate you.

He's going to want to keep you from the restored relationship that God wants to have in your life. And so sin is his biggest tool to do that because it creates shame and fear and anger and guilt. It produces all those sort of results, which ensnares people, literally puts them in chains. That's what those sin results do when the enemy is having his way.

Yep. I love how you put that. Come on, New Yorkers, Pennsylvania, New Jerseyans, even Vermont, Maine, even come on, even Canada. Well, maybe that's a bit of a stretch for you, but yeah, you understand what you're saying. You know, you don't want to be manipulated by the devil. And that's exactly what his lies and manipulation. And he's, you know, he's pretty clever at it because a lot of us don't know how God operates and we're not even connected to it. But once we know that, then

It'll be harder for us to fall for that. And the way I see it, it's kind of like a process to a great degree. Let me give you a metaphor that New Yorkers will connect to in a very intimate way. We have been at war with the devil since the beginning of time. Why?

Because we are created in God's image, and we have the privilege of being able to be in his presence for all eternity for those of us who accept Christ as our Savior. That is our privilege. That is our birthright. That is what we have available to us. We have to accept it as a gift, but that is what. The enemy is going to spend eternity in hell.

whenever God says, now's the time. So he hates all of God's children, regardless if you're doing good things or not, regardless if you're in a relationship with him. He hates you. We have been at war. Every child, every innocent baby that takes his very first breath, walks into spiritual battles the moment, in some cases, they don't even get out of the womb.

They lose the fight in the womb. Every child is created for that relationship. Whether or not they choose to do that is one thing or the other. So when you understand that, when you understand that there is a opposition out there that is wanting to crush you, to crush your family, you can start to man up and be the person the guy created you to be and to be on guard. Once you know that you've got bad people that are trying to hurt you, you can

Have a gun. You can do whatever it is that you need to do to protect your family. Let me give you a real personal example. The Islamists out there said that they were against the great Satan, which is the United States, and that they were having a jihad against America long before 9-11.

We thought that we were, like, safe. If we really listened to them and really said, wait a minute, these people really mean us harm, we would have had our guard up and maybe 9-11 would have never happened. But because we thought we were safe,

untouchable because we thought that they were just blustering over there. That's the way every human being is. We think that we are smarter than the devil or we won't get trapped in his snares and so forth, or that we don't need God or whatever happens to be. And then all of a sudden, a bullet like a 9-11 hits us and we're gone. We're no longer available.

Because we were living our life our way under our rules. And we...

weren't forearmed because we didn't believe that we were in a war. The United States knows that it's in a war now. We're paying attention to every threat. We pay attention to everyone out there and we are doing our best to prevent another 9/11 from ever happening. People out there that are listening to this right now, you are in a spiritual war and the enemy wants to take you out. He wants to take your kids out. He wants to take your wives and husbands out.

And until you actually align yourself with God and get enlisted into his family, adopted into his family, you're not going to be prepared for what the enemy has for you. You know what? I hope you're listening to what he just said. It's indisputable. He may argue semantics and some details, but that's not the point.

The point is, we was asleep. We thought we was, I don't even dare say it, God, we were untouchable. We don't need him. And that's the biggest sin. When we think we got, we don't need him. Okay, God, move aside. My life is good. I don't need you until tragedy strikes. And then what was the first couple of words with you? Oh my God, how did this happen? I mean, I'm not trying to make light of it, but we were in shock because

We fell asleep. We spiritually fell asleep to the threats of the devil. I was in California when it all happened, and I sat there and watched those towers fall. It broke my heart. It broke my heart for the people that lost their lives. It broke my heart for the damage that it had to one of our great cities. In that moment in time, we were all Americans. We were all one family. We were all together.

Understand that we are seeing in our communities little 9-11s happening in people's lives all day long. Somebody dies of fentanyl. Somebody gets divorced. Somebody gets hooked on pornography. Somebody gets hit by a car and loses a child. These little 9-11s are happening in our lives and in our community all around us. The body of Christ needs to wake itself up

It needs to get up. Men have to man up and become the protectors of their family, spiritual guides of their family, and to become exactly what it is that God created them to be. So that their family is prepared, is protected, and is also taking back the groundwork

that we have given up in our communities. You know, the Philadelphia that I remember is not the Philadelphia of today. Last time I was in Philadelphia, it broke my heart. Roosevelt Boulevard looked like a slum. Roosevelt Boulevard, when I lived there in the 60s, was a garden area, was a beautiful area. These things can be reversed, but we are out of our element if we are trying to do this under our own strength, under our own wisdom.

We need to be getting our marching orders from God. The only one that is wise enough for us to be able to reverse some of these things that are happening in our families and in our communities. - And preach, I hope you're listening to this. Forget my mumblings and ramblings, I hope you're listening to it. This is value, this is, you know, I'm not gonna compare it to a valuable material, I think it's an insult. This is invaluable for us to hear, okay?

You can forget about a lot of things I've said, but don't ignore this. This is key. The answer is simpler than you think. Do not complicate it. Take, listen to God, follow his marching orders to the T and take it as face value. If you need help, well, that's why his ministry is here. There you go. Little shameless plug-in. It'll guide you to find out how you're gifted with God and conduct assessments. I mean, I never, personally, I never encountered a ministry that

a digital ministry at that, that does assessments. Moses has come. This is the word of God. You don't, you donate some money.

You get out. Yeah, we want to make a real change in people's lives. And the best way that we can do that is to intimately connect them to God so that God can start to speak to them. I released a book just recently called Sparks Turn Into Brushfires. If people go to our website, brushfires-digital.com, and they register as a new user, we gift it to you. We want you to have it.

And the nature of that book is to show how God is wanting to talk to his children. He's wanting to tell you to turn left when you need to turn left, to stop when you need to stop, to turn right. The intimate nature of the relationship that every one of God's children has, simply by the birthright of being born into God's family, allows you to have that.

What we want to do is strengthen that relationship, allow you to see how you can be useful in God's hands, how he created you to make a difference in your family, in your community, in your world, and then to deliver you to that place where you can experience joy simply because dad is looking down at you going, yeah, you did what I wanted you to do, Elias.

Great job. Great job. Look what you did. Look what difference that you made. Thank you for being obedient to what I asked you to do. It's that intimate relationship that God wants to have with every one of his sons and daughters. You don't need an intermediary to be able to do it. You have that direct right to go directly to God who created you and ask him, Dad, I

How can I be of service today? How can I make a difference? Right. And just to make it just a little more digitally oriented, because sadly, I'm desperate. I'm being honest. I don't have a lot to guess. I should. But how what's the advantage of digital ministry has besides just instant connectivity? I mean, what advantage as opposed to a more traditional church or mega church that's only planned in one place?

We have a very narrow focus. And so our ministry is what people refer to as a parachurch ministry, which means we minister to all Christians. It really doesn't matter denomination. If you believe in the Bible, you believe in Jesus as your Savior.

we minister to you. So there is that advantage in that we can go many areas. The online ability for us to do this allows us to reach a much broader audience. It allows them to share it within their families. It allows them to be able to use it within their churches or even in their businesses. We have a lot of businesses that have implemented our practices and so forth. So that's the advantage because it allows for the platform to be able to be shared with

you know, boundaries, you know, the things that we teach applied, you know, in Canada and any, our ministry right now is, is, is English based. So we, we really don't work in other countries that English isn't, isn't the dominant language, but basically anywhere that speaks English, we are a, an effective ministry to be able to do that.

So that's the real difference. Let me just add on to the language part real quick. Unless you partner with a Spanish counterpart that believes what you're doing, could expand that to Spanish and then churches have able to do that. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out once you find either Spanish, it doesn't have to be Spanish, it could be French, whatever that God guides you, right? Because I'm just thinking practically humanly, Spanish is a very popular native language.

You'll get so much of South America, Spain, even certain African nations. That's how broad Spanish is. I'll just use that as an example. But whatever God leads you, obviously. If it's Portuguese for some reason, it has to be Portuguese or Yoruba. That's an African language in there. But whatever God guides you.

It will happen at some point. I know I won't be the one having to do that work. My job is to get the curriculum and the teaching and the team together, a team of coaches and counselors and pastors, ministers and elders, to begin to minister in a relationship format so that they can disciple the people that God has created.

prepare for them to disciple. That's my job. The technology part, I am pioneering at this point, but at some point in time, I look forward to the moment where I can hand that over to a younger group of technicians that will love to make it

available in the Spanish language or Portuguese, talk to our Brazilian friends or Japanese or Chinese or whatever it happens to be. I know that that will happen one day.

It's not going to be my responsibility. I've got other things to do within this ministry. I'm the tip of the spear. There's others behind me that will continue growing it and expanding it. Oh, you see, that's even humble right there because he knows I'm going to be, oh, I may be in charge now, but I'm not going to be in charge forever. And I'm not going to be touching. I'm not going to be doing tasks I know I'm not suited for.

Because, you know, some people want to get involved in everything. It's like, oh, no, that's my name and all that. Even though, you know, it's God's church, not JR's church, not Elias' church, certainly not my church. Right.

You know, it's God's church, and some humans just tend to forget that. And, you know, we got to be humble. We cannot put ourselves, we cannot replace God, even though we do that because, you know, of sin and ego. And we talk about, you know, be complacent and being blind to double, even though he has given us a bold face threat. You should take a face value. 9-11 is such a good, that's such a great example. And I feel that to this day. I mean, I was in grade school when that happened. So, yeah.

So I was tearing as well, but I'm not going to focus on that too much. Ever since then, it hasn't happened. I mean, smaller attacks have happened, but never to that scale of,

So I think that's a good and that's a very good analogy that's going to get people to have some kind of feeling or strong feeling. It doesn't have to be visceral, but at least a strong feelings to get. I actually got to pay attention. Yeah, you got to be alert. You got to be vigilant. Here's the thing about the American people that needs to start to awaken.

Okay. And it doesn't matter. See, I've lived in all four corners of our country. I lived in Philadelphia area for nine years. I moved down to Florida. My mom remarried a Southerner. So Florida sometimes is like South New York, but it's also because of the cultural thing with my stepfather. I understood the Southern mentality. His family was from Georgia. I then moved to California, lived there for, I don't know,

30 years or so, and now I'm up in the Pacific Northwest in Idaho. I've been in all four quadrants of our country. The thing about the American people is that we're a unique individual group of people, that there is a pride in our country and pride in who we are. You can see it every once in a while in like a sports team and so forth. The unique thing about 9-11 is

is that it united the entire country as Americans. What I want people to understand is that the body of Christ is even bigger than that. The body of Christ incorporates people from Africa and Brazil and China and Brazil

and Europe, and all over the world. That is the nature of who we really are. Our citizenship as believers is not in America. It's in heaven. We are citizens of heavens. We are ambassadors employed by God to come here to talk to those that have not made a decision for Christ and to invite them into that relationship.

So if the Christian people out there begin to see the power and the truth of their identity in who they really are in God's economy, now all of a sudden that pride that we had as Americans and that anger we felt as Americans when we saw those towers falling, now you start looking at that and you go, yeah,

My neighbor who died of fentanyl, I'm not happy with that anymore. Person that was killed on that drive-by shooting, yeah, I'm not down with that. That gang that has taken over my community, I'm not okay with that. You begin to start to see the outrage of God's children being hurt and exploited and harmed, and it now offends you as a child and

and as a citizen of heaven. So I want people to understand that there is a bigger community that we all are part of as being part of the body of Christ. And God can speak to you and make a difference in this world from where you're at based upon who you are in him. Now, there's one other thing I want before we get sidetracked on that. I heard a testimony from a person that was a Satanist.

He had been converted from Satanism to Christianity. And he said part of the conditioning of being a Satanist was to get really connected to the spiritual world, that they could see things at a spiritual level that the rest of us just aren't attuned to.

What he said was that if Christians understood the power and authority that walks with them, they would not feel fear or shame or guilt. They would not fear that because they are walking with the power and authority of God Almighty. He said that every time he saw a true believer...

Typically, they had two angels on either side of them. When they were driving, there was an angel in the car. This is what the Satanists that became a believer stated as a testimony, as the power and authority that is available to us, but it's only available when we allow our free will to align with God's will in our life. One other testimony was of a young lady. She was in some city—I forget what the city was—

And there was a serial rapist that was loose in the neighborhood. Okay. And the police were looking for them for looking for anybody that saw anybody that resembled this individual at all. And she was walking home one day and she decided to go down this alley. And there was this guy there.

that was there in the shadows. And she saw him and she was a little frightened, but she prayed about it and she just continued to walk by. Later on, he raped somebody else that night and they caught him. They caught that man and that was the rapist. And they wanted the young lady who said, yeah, I saw him in that neighborhood to testify that he was in that area to be part of the prosecution of the rapist.

And she sees him in the lineup and goes, yeah, that's the guy I saw in that alleyway. Later on, the cops were interviewing. I go, well, if you saw her, why did you not grab her instead of the woman that you did rape? And the guy looked at the cop like he was crazy. And he goes, are you kidding me? She had these two huge men on either side of her walking down that alley. God had

Romans...

Romans 8.10, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purposes, God causes all things to work together for good. Do you love God? Are you doing what he called you to do? It's going to work out. He'll send his angels with you. If you're on a mission to do what God created you to do, you walk with his power, his authority to be able to accomplish it.

And let me use a creative analogy for the more younger secular crowd. You see how this, I call this weapons of mass destruction. If we get the Wi-Fi of God's call and be receptive to it, we go on the right path. But if our reception is cut off because we allow the devil to do that,

We'll be distracted and we'll be, we'll be going to all kinds of messy and wrong directions. So our connection to God, a lot of ways, it's like the phone being connected to the cell tower. We got to be connected to God. You're not receiving him, then we're going in the wrong direction. That's the way I can say it to more, to add the other people's not believing in God as much. So it's kind of like that. That's the best analogy I could give without getting too complicated or getting too long winded. So only, um,

I think I will wrap it up. I think we got enough digital and got in there. All right. So let's do the shameless plug in. Where can I find you? Where to have access to all your products? So Roman, sorry, by the way, that was Romans 828, not Romans 810. I misquoted earlier. So they go to brushfires-digital.com.

and they register as a new user. It's free to register. It doesn't cost you anything. You're going to get one of our assessments for free. There's 11 assessments that are part of the psychometric package, but you'll get one of our spiritual gifts assessments that is, we'll make that available to you for free. You get three books, including that one I mentioned earlier, Sparks Turned Into Brush Fires. I would recommend it to anybody that's really trying to

Trying to listen to God and try to hear His voice because it accounts through my life how God has talked to me. What would I have obeyed Him? What was the outcome? In fact, the entire period of 2015, 16, 17, when He called me out of the corporate world of being a software developer and business owner,

to actually into ministry. That's all covered in there, including a dream that I had in 2001 about him coming back in my lifetime. That might be a good read for your people. Um, and then from there they can decide if they want to do one of our, um, packages is as little as $59 a month to do our gold premium package. Uh, if they want to do it a little bit quicker and accelerate it, it's $99 a month. But for that, they get, uh,

the 11 assessments they get the eight session uh video series each session is about 45 minutes to an hour and a half long they get the workbook and then at the end of that process they will get the three-hour coaching session that we call the design discovery meeting that will help us working with you in discovering what your purpose is and what it is that god wants to do through you if

If you want to continue with discipling, we only disciple people that have gone through our program because that's the only way we can help you is to know what God is calling you to do. Elias, I would recommend that you do it, that you log on, that you register to our site. I think it would be really instrumental in your growth and your understanding and make you even more effective as a voice out there because if you can align your agenda with God's purposes for your life, the power that he can have

through your platform that you have. I mean, again, you start having a couple of angels on either side of you, Elias, because you're doing what God created you to do. It'll change your impact in this world. And you've got a kind, loving heart. That is clear just in our brief conversation here. So,

So brushfires-digital.com. Register for free as a new user. Get my book, Sparks Turn Into Brushfires. It's free, and you'll get one of the assessments. And then if you like what you see, sign up for either the gold or platinum monthly subscription. They will just sign it up because, look, we always need God. The way we are heading, we obviously need him more than ever.

And look, I have been the most receptive to the Lord. I mean, I'm just being really honest. I've been in and out connection with him, just like a wacky Wi-Fi. So it's like reception is great. So time is off. That's the reception. This is what I'm talking to the more millennial Gen Z. If you're connected to God's Wi-Fi and holy power, it would be great. But once we get disconnected, we can't receive them because we went in the wrong direction. We went somewhere where it's blocked off, where you're not supposed to go.

I was going to lead us to a messy life. And I personally knew that because I used to be a little bit, well, I was just more angry at God when I was a teenager, when my father died, I tried to go to agnostic and,

atheistic path. So I know what it's like not to have God. I mean, I've been more in and out, but obviously I gotta be more consistent. I'm just being honest. Might pretend to say, oh, I got all the answers. I know, you know, I know exactly what God wants. I'll be lying to you and that's not my job. So, you know, we all are, you know, a product. We are, you know, we work in progress under the Lord, obviously, especially those who want to be connected with him. That's all I could say about that. So I think that's what I'm trying to wrap this up. Yep.

So, Elias, if you decide to go through our program and, you know, I can start taking you through that discipling process, it might be a great follow-up broadcast after you've gone through it for us to talk about those results and for you to be able to kind of share what impact it had in your life as far as going through our program and starting that discipleship process. So let me know. I'd love to walk you through it. All right, dude.

All righty, then let me just do a shameless plug in for my side. Now, you don't have to be here. If you really need to go, it's for free to go. It was great having him. Everything that he listed is going to be linked in the description of the episode, his website. And I remember just join at free. You know that there's a new user. You'll get some gifts. There's some freebies. People going to there's some freebies to you. Start with. He's gave me some stuff for free. You don't have to.

But you're showing kindness right there. OK, just give it a try. There's some free samples already. And if you're really, really dedicated, you know, put your money where your mouth is. Ask yourself to do better with the Lord. You know, you got to, you know, you got to give money to the church. Not gotta, but you should. I recommend you give money to the church. They do do a service. Don't charge up front. I mean, some places do.

But, you know, it's an investment. Okay. It really is. I mean, that's one way to put it. Not the best way to put it, but it's a spiritual investment. Okay. And the returns will be immeasurably great. That's what I want to say. It's an ROI that cannot be calculated.

My numbers are not any of that. It's beyond that. Okay. If you enjoy this video, give a like, share, give a review on the Apple podcast. I want an honest review. There's already a not nice person. Give me a one star when I'm saying it. I finally got the honor of being authentic. So there you go. And that's it. And I'm in YouTube, Rumble, and I only pay attention to Apple and Buzzsprout. Okay. That's where I'm at as well. And give a donation.

You know, if you have it, and whenever you finish going through this whole audio journey, you have a blessed day, afternoon, or night.