- 6/14/2025
CTP (S3EJunSpecial5) Brush Fires: How God Uses Our Past to Light the Way
The journey from worldly success to spiritual joy requires discovering your God-given purpose and embracing your unique design—including past traumas and experiences—to serve others effectively.
• God desires relationship over religion, inviting partnership rather than demanding robotic obedience
• Free will is central to faith—God respects our choices even when we make poor ones
• Every person has a unique purpose statement as distinctive as DNA or fingerprints
• Past struggles and traumas can become your most powerful ministry tools when redeemed
• True joy comes from using your God-given gifts in alignment with His purpose, not from success alone
• Brush Fires Ministry helps people discover their unique calling through assessments and workshops
• Our actions should flow from willing hearts rather than compulsion or force
Visit brushfires-digital.com to access free resources
The journey from worldly success to spiritual joy requires discovering your God-given purpose and embracing your unique design—including past traumas and experiences—to serve others effectively.
• God desires relationship over religion, inviting partnership rather than demanding robotic obedience
• Free will is central to faith—God respects our choices even when we make poor ones
• Every person has a unique purpose statement as distinctive as DNA or fingerprints
• Past struggles and traumas can become your most powerful ministry tools when redeemed
• True joy comes from using your God-given gifts in alignment with His purpose, not from success alone
• Brush Fires Ministry helps people discover their unique calling through assessments and workshops
• Our actions should flow from willing hearts rather than compulsion or force
Visit brushfires-digital.com to access free resources
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, aka CTP.
00:07I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12CTP is your no-must, no-fuss, just-me-you-and-occasional-guest-type podcast.
00:19I really appreciate you tuning in.
00:22Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show!
00:25Hello, everybody! Welcome to the show today, J.R. of Brushfires Ministries.
00:36But before we get to that, that he's here for, let's do the, as my regular listeners know, I like to Joe, cue the Who song.
00:49Who are you? Who, who, who, who, right?
00:54Where were you born, raised, where are you now?
00:58How much time did you spend in prison?
01:01All that, yeah, kind of stuff.
01:05Well, I'm grateful to say I haven't served in that capacity at all, so I've got that going for me.
01:12Well, to interrupt, sorry, but, yeah, I did have a show, and I didn't use that joke then, and I probably shouldn't, because some may have had prison time.
01:26As I've literally had on, I forget the name now, who came to Jesus, came to God, then started a ministry in prison, and then it extended after prison.
01:43So I probably shouldn't use that joke, but I do.
01:47Anyway, please continue.
01:49I will tell you, my current pastor right now came through, came through prison.
01:56He was an ex-drug dealer, an addict, and went through a Christian rehab program, and that man has taken all those talents and abilities that he used to, for evil, and is now a outspoken pastor of the Word of God.
02:15Love exudes from that man right now, so.
02:18Amen.
02:18Oh, I mean, there's a lot of stories like that.
02:22Some of us may have to go to prison.
02:22Yeah, I mean, there's the Mark Wahlberg movie, Father Stu.
02:30Yeah, good movie.
02:31He was a ne'er-do-well, right, and saw the light, and is a great teacher and preacher and force for good and Christ and God now.
02:48So anyway, back to, where were you?
02:51So I accidentally, by joking, stumbled down one of those rabbit holes, right?
02:57That's why I don't script my shows.
03:00Well, actually, I think it's a happy mistake.
03:04So I'll give you a real quick intro.
03:07We'll give it to the upstairs.
03:10It was divine intervention that threw me.
03:14Maybe that joke came out because we need you to go there.
03:16But yeah, back to your background.
03:18Sorry.
03:19That's all good.
03:20So my family's actually from the Philadelphia area.
03:23Sorry about that.
03:25My family's actually from the Philadelphia area, and I've lived in Florida, California, and now I'm up in Idaho.
03:33So I am a born-again son of the Most High God.
03:37That's how I introduce myself to people.
03:39And I am the husband of a lovely lady named Buffy for 45 years now.
03:46We have three kids and five grandkids.
03:49And that's the typical elevator pitch as far as my intro.
03:56But I do want to get to that point that we kind of accidentally fell upon because I think it was inspired.
04:03A lot of the things that we go through in our life, a lot of the struggles, a lot of the things that we actually suffer with or have to persevere through.
04:15The trials and tribulations are what lead us to where we are now, right?
04:20Yeah.
04:20Well, God uses those.
04:22So, for instance, this pastor that I was just referring to, he was very streetwise.
04:30I mean, he knew how to work the streets.
04:32He knew how to sell his product.
04:34He knew how to get his product.
04:36All that.
04:37Well, now you've got a pastor who loves God, who is sold out.
04:43But guess what?
04:44That street sense still comes with him.
04:46So, now when somebody comes in and is trying to work an angle or is not being honest or is trying to be manipulative, this guy smells him out like a rat.
04:57Okay?
04:57He's, I mean, he's all over that.
04:59You can't count a ton.
05:02Right.
05:02Exactly.
05:03So, in my particular case, I had a tremendous amount of success.
05:09God was very gracious to my wife and I and the success of our software company, but I wasn't experiencing joy.
05:18I was operating out of duty, responsibility, and obligation, and there was no joy in the process for me.
05:25It wasn't until he kind of took me away from the software business.
05:31I still own it and all that.
05:33But it wasn't until he intervened and said, I've got something else for you and I want you to do this, that I actually began to experience joy.
05:43So, I struggled with success, believe it or not.
05:46I mean, that's an oxymoron, but I struggled with success to get to the place where to recognize that success was not going to give me joy.
05:57It gave me short-term happiness, but not joy.
06:00It pays the bills, but…
06:03Right.
06:04But you wind up being a slave to all those things.
06:08And so, ultimately, what happened was my pursuit of wanting to really experience joy, just like the Apostle Paul did, led me to or was a byproduct of going through this ministry that we started.
06:22And that's what we want for everybody, that there's more for your Christian life than simply going to heaven.
06:29That's the cherry on top.
06:31That's the final dot on what God and Christ paid for you here.
06:36What he really wants to do is to get into your life today.
06:40Use those traumas.
06:41Use that testimony and be able to speak to other people to be able to bring life and to bring heaven to them while you are here on earth.
06:52It's not about you getting to heaven as much as it is about heaven getting inside of you and you being a conduit for God's love and purposes and intentions here to the lives of other people that you speak to.
07:05Yeah, I knew I was going to enjoy talking to you.
07:10But, yeah, two points.
07:13I hate when I do that.
07:15Behind the scenes, bitch you, brighty on, daily motion, rumble on YouTube video.
07:21You saw me holding up two hands with two fingers.
07:25That's four.
07:26No, two points that you triggered in my…
07:29One hand, two fingers is two.
07:32Not at any rate.
07:35You know, we've got to keep a sense of humor.
07:37And if we're not willing to poke fun at it and laugh at ourselves, we've got no business laughing at others.
07:43But, yeah, two points.
07:45Force.
07:47Now I forgot.
07:49Force for good.
07:50While we're here, it's not just about surviving to get to heaven.
07:572 Chronicles 7, 14.
07:59If my people shall humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, I shall hear in heaven and help heal their lands.
08:13That wave of magic wand and turn from wicked ways is a commandment for us on our part to be a force for good.
08:26And one of my favorite Canadian rock group bands is Triumphs.
08:31They have a song, Fight the Good Fight, if you know that or not.
08:35Great.
08:36They're not a Christian band per se, but Fight the Good Fight and Never Surrender are very biblically-based tunes.
08:47And even Rush, the other, not Limbaugh, the Canadian rock group, right?
08:54It's a free will song, which I'm going to get to in a minute.
08:57If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
09:00Still have made a choice.
09:02That's biblically prophetic.
09:04So let's address that.
09:07And the other thing, free will, right?
09:09God can and may use us if we let him, because otherwise we do have that free will and can resist and choose not to be the vessel.
09:23So there's two aspects here.
09:25First of all, free will is a huge factor that we don't really consider in most cases.
09:30God's a gentleman.
09:31He's not going to force anybody to do something that they don't want to do.
09:36And by the way, it's scientifically impossible to force somebody to do something against the will.
09:41Even if you physically coerce them and torture them, they are still making a choice.
09:46I don't want to be tortured anymore, and therefore I'm going to do this.
09:50So their free will can never be – we can't be robots.
09:53And God doesn't treat us like robots, even though he created us.
09:56So there's the free will thing.
09:57So we have to do that.
09:59The number two thing was if you turn your – and repent from your sins and turn towards me, there's an aspect of that where the human mind naturally goes to a sense of rules and regulations.
10:13Well, I'm going to stop doing this list of things, and I'm going to start doing this list of things.
10:17And all becomes about self-control and self-discipline and self, self, self.
10:24What God is really saying is I'm the prodigal son's father.
10:29I am waiting on the porch for you to come to me, for me to embrace you and love you and show you what I have for you.
10:38I've got a fatted cow.
10:40I'm going to slay that.
10:41We're going to party because you have turned back to me.
10:43So there is a difference between the stick approach to sanctification and the carrot approach.
10:50Stick approach is don't do these things, do these things.
10:54The carrot approach is approach God as a child, as his child, and ask him, God, what is it that you want to do in my life?
11:02I am willfully giving you my will to be able to start to make the choices.
11:09As I make a choice, I want to include you in those choices, God, to be able to participate so that I can get the wise counsel to know what the right way for me to go.
11:20That's what he's looking for.
11:21He's looking for a relationship, not religion.
11:25He's wanting to be able to talk to his child.
11:27He created you for a purpose.
11:29He wants to expose that to you.
11:31He wants you to operate in that purpose so that you can become all that he created you to be.
11:37Every one of the purpose statements that our ministry produces is not about how you can make a million dollars in the first six months.
11:45Okay?
11:45It's about how you are.
11:47How good are you that?
11:48I thought this was a get-rich-quick-scheme interview.
11:52To the world, I'm no good.
11:53To God, I'm hopefully obedient.
11:55So here's the thing about this, is that every purpose statement is how you were designed to impact and serve other people.
12:05That is what a purpose statement is.
12:08So my purpose statement is, I must strategically lead a gifted team to embrace the power of their God-given design for long-term positive results.
12:18I must lead, strategically, guide me and leading me, people to embrace what God created them to do.
12:28And by doing that, it's going to produce good fruit.
12:32That's the nature of my design.
12:34And every purpose statement that we produce through our program for the individuals is unique to that individual.
12:43None of them duplicate.
12:45It's like your DNA.
12:46It's like your fingerprint.
12:49Nobody's purpose is identical to somebody else's.
12:52They are all unique.
12:53And it's how God wants to use you specifically, with all your baggage, with all of your trials, with all the tribulations that you've gone through,
13:03so that when he puts you in front of another one of his children that has the same sort of trial that they're going through,
13:12they can look in your eyes and see the empathy and the sympathy because they can see that you know what they are going through because you have personally experienced it.
13:22If you have been healed from abortion, as far as going through that as a woman or a father,
13:32and you are talking to another woman that's considering that,
13:36they can see that you really know what you're talking about because of the pain that you endured because you said yes to an abortion.
13:45They understand that.
13:47You lost a child?
13:48One of the most devastating things I've ever seen in my 65 years.
13:51And you sit down with another parent who just lost a child, guess what?
13:57They know that you get it.
13:58They can feel it.
14:00They can feel God's love coming through your soul to be able to embrace them because you know what the pain is that they're going through.
14:08Yeah.
14:09You kind of triggered three.
14:10Hey, I did it right.
14:11Only one hand, three fingers.
14:13It's a progression.
14:14You've gone from two to three.
14:15Bad habits.
14:17I just can't break my habit of doing that.
14:20You triggered in a good way, not a snowflake way, some thoughts.
14:25Also, one, you keep using the word purpose.
14:32And that brings to mind a lot of people, in my opinion, ridiculously, stupidly attack Rick Warren.
14:41And I always say on this show, when we as Christians are fighting, Satan wins, not Christ.
14:49Right?
14:50But Rick Warren's a purpose-driven life.
14:53That's a wonderful thing in context, not a replacement for the Bible, but in context with the Bible, item two.
15:04Wait, wait, wait.
15:05Let me just interject right there.
15:07I have never read Rick Warren's book.
15:09I'm not anti-Rick Warren.
15:11I'm not pro-Rick Warren.
15:12I've never read anything that he's written on this subject.
15:15So I just want to be clear about that because the enemy has used that as a divisive tool in the church.
15:22And, you know, for good, if his teaching has done you good, God bless him.
15:28If you've been discouraged by it, then that's, you know, but we're not connected to that at all.
15:34Yeah, okay, this wasn't originally a thought along those lines, but Kate Mara has a movie called Capture or Captured, and Rick Warren's A Purpose-Driven Life plays a key role in that movie.
15:53I highly recommend them.
15:55I, too, have not read his stuff, but I'm aware of it.
15:59And that movie, to me, is a wonderful movie of, again, something that helps in a situation where she's taken hostage, and that becomes the thing between her and her captor as a means of resolving and bringing the bad guy to Christ and the Bible.
16:24So that's a good thing.
16:26But item two was to be free will again.
16:30We are to want to be our brother's keeper.
16:34Biblical community, faith, charity through free will, not leftist communism, which is a bastardization of biblical community.
16:49Again, we are to want to be our brother's keeper, not forced at the barrel of a gun to be.
16:58That's part of our overall redemptive journey.
17:06Do you willingly be your brother's keeper, or did you just go through some motions because a communist forced you at the barrel of a gun?
17:18And the third point was you said good fruit.
17:21Oh, amen.
17:23Talk all the time.
17:25Shall be known by your fruits.
17:27Actions and deeds matter.
17:29You must sow to reap.
17:33And if you are not sowing good, you are complicit in the evil fruit that is grown, that we're all then trying to choke down as sustenance.
17:47Your thoughts on that?
17:48So free will is probably one of the things that in our workshop program that we really hit on a lot.
17:56Because what happens is you have people that, based upon their wiring, their internal wiring, we use psychometric assessments, all developed by born-again believers.
18:07But based upon a person's wiring, they will approach that problem, that challenge, in a number of different ways.
18:14Some people will simply say yes to everything.
18:18You know, I'll volunteer for this, this, this, and this.
18:20That's their wiring.
18:21Others will want to kind of run ahead and, you know, take on new territory in Jesus' name and so forth.
18:31And Jesus may not even be remotely related to that effort that they're putting in.
18:37Free will is best demonstrated through faith.
18:44When you approach God and you say, Dad, I've got this problem.
18:50I've got this person that's in my life that has, I think, stabbed me in the back.
18:56How do I address that?
18:58How do I, I don't want those evil, vengeful thoughts in my head, Lord.
19:02How do I, how do I deal with that?
19:05How do I deal with that hurt and that pain?
19:07I've got a child that isn't following you, Lord.
19:11How can I, you know, how can I be a best service so that, you know, they can find the way into the kingdom?
19:20Lord, what is it that's going to help me to get past this depression or this position of financial instability?
19:28God wants us to be partnering with him.
19:32Anything that we do that is not in tandem with his intentions and his means of doing things is not going to bear us the fruit that we want to do.
19:44We're not smart enough.
19:46I don't care how educated you think you are.
19:48You're not smart enough to be able to second guess God.
19:53You can be obedient to his call.
19:56He can use your God-given gifts that he gave you for his glory, or you can go ahead and run your own show and worship your own God and become your own stooge.
20:07The issue with communism and those other isms is that what they wanted to do is subject a person's free will by use of government authority.
20:20Now, we've already said our own creator won't do that to us.
20:26He says, come to me.
20:28That means you've got a choice.
20:30You can say, no, I don't want to do that.
20:32I'm not willing to.
20:33And the left doesn't want to give you any choice, despite the fact that they love to co-opt the word choice for baby killing.
20:43Or vaccines or whatever else.
20:45So the thing here is that people need to understand that the whole aspect of faith is where you say to God, I trust you more than I trust me.
21:00And I'm a really confident, successful individual.
21:08I've been a leader virtually all my adult life.
21:11It took me a while to get to that place.
21:14In fact, I can remember a brother praying for me at a men's camp, and he and I were just chatting in that prayer time.
21:20And he goes, JR, you don't trust God.
21:22And it was like a two-by-four Joseph that hit me in the head and said, I don't.
21:28I trust my decision-making.
21:30I trust my will over God's.
21:34And that is part of the sanctification process.
21:36It has nothing to do with your salvation, by the way.
21:39Nothing to do with your salvation.
21:41It has everything to do with, can God start to work through you and make a difference?
21:45Are you willing to say, Dad, I need advice.
21:50I don't know how to deal with this.
21:52Can you help me?
21:54Can you guide me?
21:55Can you direct me?
21:57And we as Christians being better people about other people's salvation, not ours, but bringing others to their salvation.
22:10And good for them out of brotherly love, right?
22:16And you mentioned you used the word child before.
22:20I say that all the time, too.
22:23No matter how advanced we think our society is as humanity now, we are still but children to the knowledge and power of God.
22:35In fact, being described as a child is a little too kind to us.
22:43We're more like that child in the middle of the grocery store having a temper tantrum, kicking and screaming on the floor.
22:49That's really, from God's perspective, what we look like.
22:54I think you're right.
22:56It's only when we humble ourselves and go, I don't get this.
23:00I don't know how to move forward in this, Lord.
23:03Please give me the wisdom and the guidance.
23:05I got to tell you, I've grown more in my faith and in my relationship with God as this ministry has been laid on me and I've taken on the responsibility.
23:16There's some costly lessons I had to learn up front.
23:19There are ones that, with regards to people, that I'm constantly learning that is sometimes heartbreaking.
23:24But it's only possible in that communion with God and that relationship with him where I simply admit my limitations and what do you want me to do?
23:39How do I get past this stumbling block right now, this impediment, so that I can actually continue what it is that you've called me to do?
23:52Yeah, and you mentioned, you said this ministry.
23:57Great segue, because we're now like 25 minutes in almost, almost time to wrap up so people can listen over our lunch hour.
24:06And I haven't even brought up again yet, Brush Fires Ministry.
24:14You kind of already answered what brought it all about, but yeah, Brush Fires, and it's plural, Brush Fires Ministry, right?
24:25So let's indeed spend a couple minutes on that specifically.
24:32Why that name and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
24:36So the name, so I mentioned my purpose statement earlier on, and I was contemplating that in 2017 when I said, all right, well, I think if I really believe this joy thing is the outcome of being obedient to my God-given calling, and my purpose statement is the direction of my God-given calling, what are you going to do about it?
24:59Well, I got the assessments, they're good, but the church doesn't know and doesn't embrace this sort of thinking and isn't teaching discipleship, isn't doing that.
25:09So I thought, all right, well, I guess I have to write the curriculum to bring this to the church.
25:14And as soon as I made that mental confirmation that I would take on that task when God said, this is what needs to be done, I said, okay, I'll do it.
25:26At that moment in time, Joseph, I got the name Brush Fires Ministry.
25:30It was just given to me.
25:32I know it was in my head first.
25:33I think the divine inspiration there is brush fires, setting brush fires, derivative of the burning bush.
25:45Yes.
25:47Yeah, so I agree to do that, and off I went.
25:50But my motivation was really all established in an article I wrote back in 2013.
25:57That whole joy thing was bugging me.
25:59How could I find a certain percentage of Christians, not many, that were really joy-filled?
26:05And I would sit back and examine them, you know, because I've always been observant of people, and it's been very helpful in leadership and motivating people.
26:14And my first reaction was, oh, they're faking it.
26:17You know, they're not really joyful.
26:19And then you look back and you get them close and go, man, no, they're legit.
26:22They really are that.
26:24And why don't I have that?
26:26I know I'm saved.
26:27I've been saved since I was 12 years old.
26:29I'm certain of my eternal destination.
26:32Why do I not have that joy?
26:34And when I was considering that thought, God said, because they are doing what I created them to do.
26:42And that's where the whole concept of purpose and being obedient to God's calling came into my life.
26:47So the whole idea of Brushfire's ministry is to get God's children actively doing and being led individually by him to be able to accomplish his will here on earth.
27:00And by doing so, they experience joy, they experience joy, they make a difference in their world, they start to take back the territory that the enemy has stolen from us.
27:10And we begin to become a real thorn in the side of the enemy, preventing him from destroying more lives.
27:19So the ministry is here on earth as it is in heaven.
27:26And it's an imperfect world.
27:28It's always going to be.
27:30It's a fallen planet.
27:31But we are called to at least try to make things better.
27:37I had a show with Christopher Armstrong Stevenson just recently dropped.
27:44Well, by the time this drops, it will have been months ago now about Revelation.
27:50Are we trying, you know, certain Shiite sects, as well as the Om Shrinyoko Christian cult in Tokyo, have the mindset that we are to hasten Armageddon and the return.
28:06To me, again, that's being complicit in the evil then.
28:13We are to want to sow good here on earth as it is in heaven.
28:18It's never going to be, but we are at least supposed to try.
28:24And indeed, this episode is now a classic example of exactly, and you as a guest, exactly what I'm aiming for.
28:33We've packed a whole lot of stuff in the, you know, 10 pounds of the you-know-what in the five-pound bag, and that's always the plan.
28:44Now, I have your website, but it will be in the Buzzsprout transcript extended show notes listing there.
28:54But for the sake of those listing on the audio-only platforms, where do people reach you?
29:02What is the website?
29:04And we'll wrap it up.
29:05So the website is brushfire-digital.com.
29:09If they register as a new user there, they will get two free books.
29:14In fact, I'm writing a third one about how God has worked through my life, and that will eventually be available also as a free resource.
29:22I want to give that book away, as well as they will also get one of our 11 assessments, the Spiritual Gifts Assessment.
29:30We always give that away for free.
29:32So if they simply register, they'll get all that for free.
29:35Secondarily, they can then choose to go through our digital workshop program.
29:39We just released a new program, $59 a month.
29:44They can get a book.
29:45They can get the 11 different assessments.
29:47They can get our eight-session digital workshop, and then they also get a three-hour coaching session at the end of that to help them discover what their purpose is.
29:59For $59 a month, there's nothing else like it out there.
30:03And we've really – and by the way, I don't take a salary.
30:06I want people to understand that.
30:07That money goes to support the framework and all the IT resources that are needed to bring this to the world.
30:18And as an ex-IT guy, you know these things aren't cheap.
30:21Yeah.
30:21Oh, yeah.
30:23Oh, this show isn't cheap either, even though I do it kind of on the low key, I say, in the opening and the close.
30:32No muss.
30:33No fuss.
30:34You know, I'm not investing in high-production, flashy-value stuff here because I'm on disability.
30:44I can't afford – and I do have Constitutionalist Politics, the book, and Constitutionalist Politics, too, the book.
30:53While I offer this show for free, hope I can get some paid subscribers who like my mission and my ministry.
31:03Absolutely.
31:03I do sell those books because being on disability, I've got to try to supplement my income somehow.
31:13So thank you, JR, for coming by.
31:16I really appreciate it.
31:18Again, another great guest that we could probably go on for three hours.
31:24But if we did, a lot less people would listen because that's too much time to ask people to invest.
31:32All good.
31:32I appreciate your invitation to come and join you on this and have people go to brushfires-digital.com, and they can contact me through there.
31:42Yeah, I'm glad you said – again, that's brushfires-digital.com, not underscore, not carrot, not brushfires-digital.com.
31:57Thank you, JR, for coming by.
31:59Take care.
31:59God bless.
32:00You too, Joseph.
32:01Thank you for having tuned in for a Christianist politics show.
32:07If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you.
32:17Available anywhere books are sold.
32:19If you have locally-run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you.
32:25And let me remind, over time, the fancy high-production items will come.
32:31But for now, for starters, it's just you as a very appreciated listener by me.
32:38All substance, no flow, just straight to Key Discussion Point.
32:43A show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian U.S. Constitutionalist lens.
32:52So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
32:56Take care.
32:56God bless.
32:57Like and subscribe to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes.
33:05We need your help.
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