My Best Friend

I think my guitar is my best friend (next to Jesus).

I find so much joy just in spending time with it. There's always more to get to know, more to try, more room to grow as a player, and more fun to be had.

The more time I spend hanging out with my guitar, just jamming and writing songs, the better friends we become. The more I get to know it, the better it seems to respond to me.

It's interesting to feel emotionally and spiritually connected to an instrument. You may not think you can be spiritually connected to an instrument, or to any object, but I disagree.

I've been reading the Psalms lately, and in Psalm 33:1-3 it says, "Joyfully sing to the Lord, you righteous people. Praising is proper for decent people. Give thanks with a lyre to the Lord. Make music for him o a ten-stringed harp; Sing a new song to him. Play beautifully and joyfully on stringed instruments." Now, stay with me here. If God is spirit and not flesh, not material, how is it that material things could ever mean anything to him? In who he is (which is, again, spiritual and not material) he is complete and content and perfect. Nothing material could add to who he is or give him anything he doesn't already have. Now, something spiritual on the other hand is something he can directly link himself to. This is why we are not just flesh but (soul and) spirit, because without spirit, we would not have anything to connect to him with right?

Now, this Psalm makes it clear that it is good to praise God with instruments, and since it's in his word, we'll count it as being accurate and true to who he is. Here's where it comes together.

If we connect with our spirit through our instruments, we are able to offer him something more than just our voices, which is probably why David tells us to play as well as sing to the Lord. The instrument just adds to the singing and suddenly, there is an additional praise there. Not that those who sing and don't play have less to offer or anything, that would be a lie from the devil. FROM THE DEVIL YOU HEAR ME! There is something special about a voice standing alone to praise God boldly without an instrument, and there's also something special about someone who pursues to develop their voice as their instrument, almost making it doubly special. I'm getting off on a tangent here.

Here's what I want to say. I love playing guitar, and I think God loves it when I play too because I have established my guitar as a conduit of praise for him and allow my guitar playing to be part of the spiritual offering I bring to God in my worship. I love just noodling and jamming out, I think that God likes that too, because I am growing with this instrument to become a better player, and offer him even more in my praise.

Keep on playin'!

Message for Lead Guitarists

I believe that God's Word for us as Lead Guitarists is to hone our skills, for His Glory.

For us as musicians, we have the reputation of being people who love the spotlight and seek the praise of men (especially girls) because of our flashy skills. This, of course, should not be so of the people of God.

While the initial context of this passage of the following Bible verse is speaking of prayer, the same message can be applied to us:

Matthew 6:1

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."


5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

I decided not to include verse 3 and 4, because it says "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing". This is because as guitarists, we need to do this otherwise it's gonna suck!


Once again, the initial context of the following passage does not have anything to do with guitar playing, but I believe that if we are to to play guitar to receive praise, it should come from God, not man:

John 5:44

"How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God ?"

Now, having this said, the ultimate aim for our playing is to worship God, not for Him to worship us.

With this is mind, I would now like to draw our attention to this verse. It is often used as someone's favourite verse, but recently I've looked at it in a different light.

1 Samuel 16:7

Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart.

So firstly, our main priority is that when we worship, our heart is in the right place, because it is clear that God is not impressed with our stage performances, facial expressions, how cool we look etc.
But if we look at the verse with the emphasis on "man looks on the outside", BECAUSE we can't see someone's heart, maybe we can get an indication of what a person's feeling. The way we express ourselves should reflect what's going on inside, because love requires action.

Also, if you've ever been onstage during a worship time, and you look up and see that people are bored and disinterested, then our stage presence is, albeit very small, something that we can use to help people engage in worship.

This brings me to my next point, and that is that we should play excellently. No one likes to hear a musician who thinks he can play yet really can't. I know we all have our off days and hit some terrible notes, but if we were to play for the Queen of England, or the Presidet of the USA, we would do our very best to make sure that we play to the best of our abilities.

How much more so for the King of Kings?!

Now, this gets me excited, because an excellent player should have excellent equipment at his disposal.

Psalm 33:3 says, in the Amplified

"3 Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully [on the strings] with a loud and joyful sound."

I think sometimes we can become gear junkies, which very rarely leads to idolatry, but I think that if we wanna give God our best, why wouldn't we do it on decent instruments and amps?

For a Biblical example of extravagence and expensive equipment for worship, check out the description of the Temple of God in 1 Kings 6 ands 2 Chronicles 4 here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20kings%206,%202%20chronicles%204&version=31

I have 2 final points.

One is that King David's skills on the harp brought healing to Saul in 1 Samuel 16:23.
This healing came from David walking rightly in the sight of God and had relationship with Him. He played prophetically, and the Holy Spirit moved through his playing.

My question to you fellow guitar players is why would the Spirit not move through our guitar solos and release others from bondage also?

So just have faith that when the worship band enter's into THAT zone, where the Spirit is moving and you are in a time of "free-worship", that what you contribute may well be the tipping point for someone to get healed, released, or for God to move through and save someone.

My final point is this, that true worshippers are those who worship in spirit and in truth, for those are the kinds of worshippers that God seeks.
Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in John 4 that it isn't about where we worship, whether in Jerusalem or on a hill, or at a massive conference, at church, or in our room, but it's all about that we worship with out spirits, because God is Spirit.

God is True, Jesus is The Truth, and we should worship about what is true: that we are saved sons and daughters of God, we are the righteousness of Christ because we are IN Christ, and our worship is a joyful response from that place.

Rock on!