HCC Weekly - June 2nd, 2025

Monday, June 2nd

Pastor Ken

Psalm 28:7 (NIV)

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.

The backstory behind this psalm is that David was in trouble, so he cried out to the Lord and the Lord rescued him. Therefore, his motivation in penning this psalm was two-fold: (1) To express gratitude to the Lord for His help and (2) to encourage us to also call upon the Lord in our time of trouble.

David’s reasoning for calling upon the Lord is also two-fold. First, it’s because of the Lord’s strength. In this context, the word “strength” is an all-inclusive term meaning physical strength, spiritual strength, or emotional strength. Regardless of the kind of strength you need, the Lord is your source. Second, David says the Lord is your “shield,” which means “defender.” In other words, the Lord is sovereign over His own strength. No one can take His strength from Him and no one can prevent Him from imparting His strength to you.

But there is a condition; your heart must trust Him, which means that trusting God is not an emotional decision or a spur-of-the-moment, knee-jerk decision, but rather it is a cognitive, thoughtful, informed decision you’ve reached after having considered all the facts.

Then, once you’ve made the choice to trust Him, David says God supplies His strength to you by “helping” you. In this context, the word “help” means “open space.” In David’s day a common military tactic was to attempt to corner the enemy into a confined space, thereby making it difficult for him to swing his sword in battle. If you could confine him in this way then your chances to overpower him were good. But as long as he remained in an “open space” he was a threat; chances of victory were in his favor. So, in David’s day, “ample space” was synonymous with victorious living.

The relevance is this: Life is such that it will always attempt to him you in, but if you’re willing to trust God – to take Him at His Word – He promises to be your “strength” and your “shield” thereby giving you “ample space” to fight back – and even to experience victory.

Here’s praying that you experience victory today…have a great Monday!