A Promise Is Only as Good as the One Who Made It

I’m excited to put something in your hands today that could save you years of frustration in your walk of faith. We’ve been talking about how Abraham walked by faith — and today I want to show you the part most people completely skip past. Including me, for years.

It’s not the formula that makes faith work. It’s the One behind the formula.

Your walk of faith has to start with a promise — not a need.

Go back with me to Romans 4. Abraham’s faith didn’t start with him sitting around thinking, “You know, I’d kind of like to have a kid.” It started with what God told him. A Word. A promise. That’s where it has to begin.

Here’s why this matters. Without a promise, at 2:00 in the morning when the doubts come — and they will come — you have nothing to anchor to. Your soul starts spiraling. “Did God really say this? Is He actually going to do it? How do I know?” If you started your walk of faith with your need instead of His Word, you have no answer for those questions.

Faith begins with a promise. And faith ends at the question mark. The moment there’s a question mark, you’re not in faith anymore. You have to remove the question first — and the only way to do that is with the Word of God.

God gave you His promises because you needed them — not because He needed to.

Hebrews 6:17 says God confirmed His counsel with an oath. Now think about that. God cannot lie. He had absolutely no reason to swear an oath because everything He says is already true. But He did it anyway.

Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation.

— Hebrews 6:17–18 (NKJV)

He swore because you needed it. Not because He needed to. He made the promise because among men, an oath ends all dispute — and He wanted all disputes ended in your heart. He wanted to anchor your soul to something unshakeable.

That promise is an anchor for your soul. So when the bank account is screaming at you at 2:00 in the morning, you can answer back: “My God shall supply all of my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” That’s not wishful thinking. That’s a sworn oath from a God who cannot lie.

Most people start their walk of faith with their need — and that’s the problem.

“Lord, I need this. I need You to do this.” How do you know He will? “Well, I don’t know. Maybe He will, maybe He won’t.” That’s not faith. There’s a question mark right in the middle of it.

You always know what God is going to do. He says it in His Word. He watches over His Word to perform it. All this idea that you can never figure out God — that’s not scriptural. You can know exactly what He’s going to do. He’s going to do exactly what He said He would do.

So get in the Word. Find the promise that covers your need. Anchor your soul to it. That’s where your walk of faith starts.

But a promise is only as good as the one who made it.

Here’s where most people stop — and where faith breaks down.

Notice what Romans 4:17 says: Abraham believed in the presence of Him whom he believed. He spent time with God. He got to know God. It wasn’t just that he had the Word — he knew the One who gave it.

You’ve probably met people who can promise you all day long and you know it means nothing. The promise is worthless because you don’t trust the person behind it.

The same thing happens in your walk of faith when you turn the Word of God into a formula without knowing the God who gave the formula.

There are multitudes of people right now trying to walk by faith in a God they don’t actually know. They have the promises. They have the Scriptures. But they haven’t spent time in His presence. They haven’t gotten to know Him. And when pressure hits, the formula doesn’t hold — because their confidence was in the formula, not in the One who made it.

Get to know the God behind the promise.

If you abide in Him and His Words abide in you, John 15:7 says you’ll ask what you desire and it will be done. That word abide doesn’t just mean you’re saved and you’ve read the Bible. It means His Words live in you. They speak to you. They shape how you see everything. And that kind of relationship only comes from time — time in the Word and time in His presence.

Here’s the practical path forward. One: find the promise that covers your need. Two: anchor your soul to it. Three:

Spend time with the God who made that promise until you know Him well enough to trust Him with it.

That’s not a formula. That’s a relationship. And that’s what makes faith work.

Fight To Win. Start today.