What God Sees As Blessing - A Closer Look at the Rechabites

If you delight in the LORD and want Him to delight in you - or if you’re simply a prudent believer who wants to position yourself (and your offspring) for blessing - you’ll want to pay attention to the Rechabites.

Jeremiah 35:18–19 (NKJV) And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

‘Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you, therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
“Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever.” ’ ”

At first read, this passage raises questions:

Who are the Rechabites?

Why are they refusing wine?

And why does God drop such a sweeping blessing on them?

⸻

Who They Were

Judges 1:16

Now the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up from the City of Palms with the children of Judah into the Wilderness of Judah… and they went and dwelt among the people.

Through Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenites attached themselves to Israel early on. Later, they gave rise to the house of Rechab.

1 Chronicles 2:55 (NKJV)

…These were the Kenites who came from Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab.

And Jonadab? We meet him here:

2 Kings 10:15–17 (NKJV)

Now when he departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, coming to meet him; and he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart right, as my heart is toward your heart?”

And Jehonadab answered, “It is.”

Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand, and he took him up to him into the chariot. Then he said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord.” So they had him ride in his chariot. And when he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed them, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to Elijah.

⸻

Jonadab first shows up riding with Jehu.

“Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord,” Jehu says... and Jonadab climbs in. He might (just might) have been merely a bystander. But he was definitely there for the purge of Baal worship that followed. And whether he raised his hand or simply stood there, the blood still splattered the same.

Jonadab didn’t just see people die.

He participated.

He was in the chariot.

He smelled it, felt the weight of it, saw the faces.

That changes you at a level words can’t reach. And once you know (really know) how thin it all is, you can’t un-know it. Every city looks different. Every temple. Every feast. The illusions are cut through.

And he said:

"My sons will not trust in this.”

No Wine? Makes Total Sense

Everyone reads “no wine” as ascetic denial or religious peculiarity. But from a tactical survival perspective, it’s operational security.

It’s:

• Never compromised

• Never slow to respond

• Never vulnerable to ambush because you’re drunk at a feast

• Never making stupid decisions because your judgment is impaired

Living light? Same logic. When you might need to move now, you can’t be attached to possessions.

No vineyard means no reason to defend a fixed position. No house means no structure to get trapped in.

Nomadism isn’t poverty - it’s tactical mobility. It’s refusing to give enemies a fixed target. It’s maintaining readiness.

Jonadab saw a powerful kingdom fall in an afternoon. His rules weren’t religious wayang; they were a survivalist’s manual for his descendants.

“Don’t settle. Don’t get drunk. Stay mobile. Stay alert.

Because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t.”

Jonadab wasn’t paranoid or primitive. He was realistic in a way we’ve forgotten how to be. His nomadism wasn’t rejecting civilization from ignorance, it was rejecting it from knowledge. From having seen through it. This is trauma-informed wisdom: someone who knows, and teaches his children to live accordingly.

And he said again:

“My sons will not trust in this.”

For generations, their tents and their choices quietly repeated that vow:

We will not trust in this.

The Blessing: God’s Take

“Jonadab son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever.”

That’s dynasty language, almost identical to God’s promise to David.

Notice what goes unsaid:

• Continuity across generations: not one act of faith, but loyalty that lasts.

• Covenant resonance: they kept their father’s word; God keeps His.

• Presence over possessions: no land, wealth, or ease. The gift is access - descendants who stand before God.

From a modern lens, that barely sounds like blessing. Who cares if my great-great-grandchildren are faithful if I’m stuck living in tents with no wine? But biblically, that is the highest good:

legacy in God’s presence.

God, renew my mind to value what You esteem as blessing.

God’s Angle: “I Like Their Style”

God isn’t canonizing their lifestyle. If He wanted everyone to live like survivalists, He’d have said so. What He admires is their posture: their seriousness, their refusal to assimilate, their grit in carrying alertness for generations. And He blesses that.

Meanwhile, Judah can’t even keep the most basic covenant commitments to the God who rescued them from Egypt? The Rechabites put them to shame.

It’s as if God says:

“Look at them.
Loyal to a human forefather who taught them alertness.
Meanwhile, you sleep as if safety were your birthright.
What does that say?”

Behind that is a truth about blessing: God measures it in covenant loyalty and generational faithfulness, not in comfort or self-actualization. In every collapsing age, God keeps a remnant that still remembers what the world forgets.

The Rechabites weren’t perfect. But God looked at them and said:

“I like their style.”

And that was enough.

My Turn

We moderns live under an illusion the Rechabites would have recognized instantly: we think our comfort is permanent. Our homes, our systems, our “normal”? We treat them like bedrock.

But I’ve lived long enough, and seen the veneer peel back often enough, to know what Jonadab knew: everything can change in an afternoon.

The skills that matter aren’t just spiritual disciplines - they’re readiness, mobility, and the refusal to be lulled into false security. The Rechabites stayed alert for centuries. Can we stay alert for one generation?

God didn’t bless them for being comfortable. He blessed them for being awake.

May He find us the same.

Guitarization of Worship Piano

Picture this: it’s the caveman-internet era. You’re a young, enthusiastic mega-church musician. There’s a huge shortage of worship guitarists at the cell group level, and you come up with a system: a way to teach strumming without needing standard notation. It’s brilliant. It works. Suddenly, more groups have guitarists who can hold down the chords and keep worship going. 

Then the knock comes: “Hey, what about piano? Can you do the same for us?” 

Now, what’s the fastest way to get a pianist “ready” for worship? Simple. Treat them like a guitarist. Give them one (maybe two) shapes per chord. Show them a couple of comping patterns. Drop them into the songs. Done. Congratulations: you’ve just created the guitarization of worship piano. 

Fast forward a few years: what do you get? Pianists who can play “patterns,” but not music. They can thump out chords, but can’t adapt when singers go off-script. They can fill space, but not lead people. Worst of all? They start believing that’s all there is. 

When such people see my piano playing at church, they miss the principles and dive straight for the formula. They don’t want to learn how I build vocabulary to support the song; they just want more stock phrases to dump into their playing, to impress themselves with their own cleverness. It’s the musical equivalent of forcing kids to memorise “风和日丽,” “my jaw dropped,” and “my face turned pale” for PSLE “creative writing.” That, applied in spades to piano, is what many of those “pianists” want.

But that’s not music. That’s mimicry. Real playing breathes. It reacts. It listens. It anchors the song and opens space for others to sing and respond. The goal isn’t to copy what sounds impressive, it’s to serve; it's to make the whole team sound like one body instead of five individuals fighting for air.

The piano can be so much more.

As long as people are effective and they can serve, I won’t criticize. Plenty of pianists are happy to just strum along on 88 keys, and if their churches are blessed, that’s enough. But if you’ve done enough of that and you’re restless for more (or you’re classically trained and the cookie-cutter chord approach gives you musical acid reflux) know this: you’re not crazy. The piano really can be more.

When I sit at the piano, I don’t want it to be a large, heavy and loud guitar substitute. I want it to breathe, to carry, to shape the worship. And if you feel that tug too… well, maybe we should talk.

Where to find me? Over here

Why Foundations Matter: Part 5 - Why Your Strumming Sounds the Same

Preservice rehearsal. Small team. Worship leader on guitar, another vocalist, me on keys.

Worship leader: “We sound monotonous. How can we vary the dynamics?”

Me: “You know why we sound monotonous? Because you’re strumming non-stop.”

Him: “Okay… then some parts I play softer?”

Did I stutter?

People wonder why I’m such a grumpy old man. But frankly, I don’t blame the guitarists. I blame how they were taught.

If they came from a cookie-cutter, mass-production school, odds are they were made to memorize a few strumming patterns by rote. Instead of learning to build rhythm from the ground up, to adapt to chord changes, to accent key parts of the singing, just be glad if they can even keep time with drummers at different tempos.

Critical details, such as:

• Where to strum
• How to use the palm for percussive drive
• How to move between whisper-light accents and floor-holding power

…Forget about it.

In the rush to churn out factory-preset guitarists, basics are always the first to die. Same as with drums: stick drills reveal if the wrist motion is correct. Strumming has its own checkpoints too, but they take time, they take correction, and correction doesn’t sell.

Because too many adult learners don’t like being corrected, and too many teachers won’t risk losing students to the “fun” music school down the street. So what we get is a generation of guitarists who sound the same, no matter the song. In a small group or prayer meeting, the continual spamming and right-hand spasms might still be tolerable, but in a church band? You should see the horrified expressions from guitarists when I suggest they maybe take a break during the verse and let the pianist anchor, just for sonic variety.

So what’s the answer, JJ?

I don’t have one. God didn’t appoint me the Church Music Standards Police. I’m not issuing chord-offence citations every time someone abuses G-D-Em-C. And I’ve got no interest in starting another cookie-cutter factory school to compete with the ones already out there, cajoling adults who think learning skills are supposed to be as easy as casual hobbies. I’m too old for this.

But if you’ve ever felt stuck, if you’ve wondered why your strumming sounds the same no matter what you play, maybe it’s time to stop memorizing patterns and start learning rhythm for real.

[Click here if you’re ready to trade cookie-cutter strumming for real rhythm →]

Why Foundations Matter: Part 4 - Shortcuts Cost You Freedom

The Acoustic Advantage

I was at a small conference not long ago. Two instruments sat there waiting: a shiny digital keyboard with every patch you could imagine, and a plain Yamaha upright. I went for the upright. Why? Because when you’re leading worship in an unfamiliar place, with no idea what might collapse mid-set, you don’t want to gamble on gadgets. With the acoustic, it was all or nothing. No transpose button. No space age pad to cover weak voicings. Just ten fingers, muscle memory, and guts. That’s how I like it.

The Shortcut Whisper

I don’t mistrust the transpose button because it fails. I mistrust it because it works, all too well. It whispers: why wrestle with a tough key when one press can move the whole world? Same with capos. I carry one in the guitar bag for emergencies; if someone insists on singing in E♭, fine, strap it on and get through. But capo-as-lifestyle? Second fret so you can play G-shapes in A? That’s when you’re no longer learning the instrument. That’s planting your rear end in the baby stroller and refusing to learn how to walk.

From Crutch to Cage

And here’s the problem: shortcuts feel like freedom at first, but they turn into chains. Soon you cannot imagine life without your trusty crutch. Effectiveness pays the price. Capo up a few frets and you’ve sawed off your low end; you’re basically strumming a six-string ukulele. Keep leaning on the transpose button, and you’ll never know what to do when it’s not there. Try leading worship like that. Good luck when the leader calls for a spontaneous key change, or when the only instrument around is the upright piano in the Salvation Army Chapel.

The Hard Road That Built Freedom

When I look back, I see how God used my lack of shortcuts to train me. On piano, I practiced songs like As the Deer in all twelve keys. On guitar, I had no instrument of my own, only whatever warped-neck loaners people were willing to bring along. Try forcing barre chords out of those. Frustration? Plenty. But the payoff was huge: today I can pull off mid-neck voicings in A, or throw shimmering chords in E that sound like the wind from heaven. People see “expert.” Truth is, it’s just years without safety nets.

Why It Matters for Worship

And here’s the ministry angle: worship isn’t a studio. It’s not about playing safe with your toys. It’s not about what makes you comfortable (God, how I despise that word!). It’s about service. Sometimes you’ll be in a big church with every gadget. Sometimes you’ll be in a village with only an old upright. Sometimes you’ll be leading prayer with just an acoustic guitar and your voice. At that point, shortcuts won’t save you. Only foundations will.

Your Turn

If this hit a little too close to home, good. That means it’s time to change. That’s why I built my Worship Piano and Guitar Mentorships: to help musicians trade shortcuts for skill, safety nets for real freedom. [Click here to explore them →]