The eighth chapter of Romans teaches us that creation has been subjected to futility, but in hope, that when the sons of God come forth in their manifestation, they in turn will release creation from futility.
The problem is not with creation; the problem is with the sons of God being loosed from futility. They become the first fruits of the Spirit to come forth in this liberty.
Whenever we begin to contend for this liberty, great waves of depression and deception come against us. We are in satanic conflict because Satan is now trying to prolong what was first imposed by God.
It is God who imposed futility upon all creation, including humanity; for God would not allow man, in his sinful condition, to continue living in a creation that was without any sin or futility.
Man was to take dominion over all creation. Therefore, when man was fell, creation was lowered under him; even the earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles and other things that were to be a challenge (Genesis 3).
There has been a sense of futility upon all creation. Even with the divine order that is found in the laws of nature, there is still a futility in all kinds of life. Whether it is in the organic or inorganic realm, there remains a deep sense of futility on all creation.
The time has come for us to be released. We are ready to be loosed, but Satan tries to prolong the deliverance and discourages us with a deep spirit of futility.
The Scriptures establish one fact that must become real to us: it is our choice to refuse futility. The creation does not have any choice; it is subjected to futility, yet with an expectation of release.
It is our choice to refuse futility but this is not true of the people in the world who do not know God. Futility is a reality to them. They do not expect anything else, whether it is in their human relationships or any other area. The spirit of futility is accepted as a way of life to worldly people. Even though it is an unconscious acceptance, their responses are conditioned to it.
For the Christian there is a choice. We will remain under futility if we fall for the satanic illusion which comes against us. When I use the word “illusion,” I do not just mean the appearance of things. Your emotions, feelings, and everything that is within your nature responds to Satan’s attack of futility, and it can completely overwhelm you. It can bring a complete diverting of your attention from the thing that God really wants you to do.
If you want to have a real battle, then just start blessing the things around you. Bless your automobile; bless every area where Satan is trying to come in to spoil you. When you set your heart to do this, you may have more problems than ever with accidents and things being spoiled. Why does this happen? Satan is trying to bluff you. Just bind that spirit of futility and rebuke it.
Every time you set your heart to walk with God, Satan will try to assault you to make you withdraw from the battle.
When you seek after God, Satan assaults you, hoping that you will react to that attack and back off.
We must press into God, no matter how much opposition comes against us.
When you become determined to believe God for the victory, God gives it to you. When we refuse to be conditioned by Satan’s attacks, then we begin to gain the victory. Because we believe God, He honors us.
As you seek to walk with God, one thing after another comes against you, until you can become very discouraged. That is Satan’s objective. He is trying to produce in you that sense of futility so that you will not accept the victory. God is more displeased with the person who draws back than with the person who never sought Him in the first place-Heb 11:38. Such a person will find themselves slowly sinking into a low spiritual state.
In this day, you will accept one of two things: faith or futility. You will be a believer, or you will let that sense of frustration and futility overcome you. No one is exempt from this attack of futility. In fact, the more aggressively you seek God, the more you will come against the spirit of futility, which is Satan himself.
The enemy comes against your authority over futility. You may feel absolutely numb with the oppression and utterly taken over by emotions, by discouragement, by a depression that is as bitter as death itself. Then you are standing in the presence of the enemy. Satan’s presence produces just the opposite effect as that of the Lord. When you stand in the presence of the Lord, there is joy (Psalm 16:11). The solution to the heaviness is to break through to the Lord; then joyfulness comes. That is the reason the prophecies and psalms of the Kingdom are shouted joyfully.
The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12b. You must press into the joy, into the dominion and the authority that is yours over the futility and depression and heaviness, because these things will constantly come against you.
While Satan tries to produce futility in us, God desires to bring forth His fullness in us. We must realize what God has provided for us. The prophecies and the Scriptures speak about our being absolutely complete in Christ.
Here is the area of warfare: whether we really believe in our relationship to the Lord, whether we believe who we are, whether we believe what God says we can do and what He has made available to us. This is the whole issue. We must accept what God is ministering to us and promising us.
Let us look at some of the promises the Lord has given us. For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace. John 1:16.
He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:20b–23.
We are the fullness of Him who fills all in all, Behind that is all authority, all power, all dominion—everything. He is going to fill all things, even the world that does not know Him. The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9). God intends for us, as His Church, to be the fullness of Him who fills all in all. That may be a difficult concept to accept. Our minds do not grasp the magnitude of this truth. We are to be the fullness of Christ.
To gain the full comprehension of what this fullness means and of His filling all things, we will read several Scriptures. Each one will help to erode away our unbelief and to prompt us into what God has provided. When we stand on His provision, we are given power over the enemy. We are Christ’s fullness. We must believe that we are the fullness of the Lord, the fullness of Him who fills all things.
And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. Ephesians 3:19, 20.
You are to be filled with all the fullness of God; it is working within you. That fullness of God within you brings about His ability to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think. It is all according to the power working in you. The fullness of God can loose creation; it can even deal with some of your frustrating circumstances.
Some areas of your life yield quickly to divine order, but there are others that Satan seizes tenaciously and makes the battleground because they are keys. Those areas have waited too long to be released, and they are working to produce futility and frustration in you. While you are getting deliverance in many areas, there will be one choice thing that Satan hangs onto and uses to discourage you so that you will not accept what God says.
We are to be filled with all the fullness of God. The power that is working in us will be turned loose, but to what extent? Exceeding, abundantly above all that we ask or think—that is a big order.
He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. Ephesians 4:10. God is making an invasion. He is going to fill everything, and He will fill you first. Then you will be a manifestation of His fullness, and that fullness will fill everything else.
Have you ever noticed that certain areas are filled with demon powers?
Fallen angels control territories and actually seem to possess certain areas? The spirit of perversion hangs over certain cities? There are some cities in which the spirit of murder prevails. Self-righteousness hangs over certain areas; and wherever self-righteousness prevails, there are also centers of witchcraft. Wherever there is a religious spirit, there Satan is also, because Satan is a religious spirit.
God is not simply concerned about getting a few churches started; He is concerned about our liberating certain areas from spiritual oppression. We are never going to move forward until we realize that these areas are held in futility. In certain cities, no matter what work of God is started; it is perverted and ends in futility.
The spirit of futility must be broken. It is our job to bring the loosing. All creation is subject to futility until we, who are the fullness of Him who fills all things, come forth. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, henceforth expecting until every enemy is made the footstool of His feet.
Once we begin to believe that there is authority over futility, we will not accept it any longer. We stand firm in this one belief: the day of release is upon us. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.
For in Him (Christ) all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority. Colossians 2:9, 10.
You must understand this: in Him you have been made complete, and He is the Head over all rule and authority. That is another difficult truth to accept. You are complete in Christ. What is the first thought that enters your mind when you think about that? Do you begin to think about your inadequacy? The Scripture does not say that you are complete in what you are physically, mentally, or emotionally. It says that you are complete in Christ.
You are complete in Christ. You may object, thinking that God cannot use you because you have many problems, but the Scripture does not say that you must have no problems; it says that you are complete in Christ.
If you are weak, He will confound the mighty through you. If you are unintelligent, He will confound the wise through you. If you are dishonorable, then He will be glorified in you (1 Corinthians 1:27–31).
The Lord wants you to realize that you are complete in Him. This concept must become a part of you. When you are in Christ, you have to accept the release from that futility. You may still feel the futility, but that is only the assault of the enemy. Futility is not a reality; it is an illusion. What is the reality? Your completeness in Christ is the reality.
We must decide what is the truth and what is a lie. The futility is a lie. This is the day when the sons of God will overcome futility. The futility is a lie. We will either have faith, or we will have futility. If we have faith, we believe with all our hearts in the completeness that we have in Christ Jesus the Lord. We are complete in Him.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him. Colossians 1:19.
We are complete in Him who is the Head. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. Colossians 1:28.
Satan will move through hereditary characteristics in some families to produce certain patterns of frustration and futility which keep coming up again and again.
But once we submit to the fullness of Christ, the tendency will change. Colossians 3:11 speaks of a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
In Christ there is no distinction, Christ is all, and in all. whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether we are bond or free. The fullness is there.
Christ is all, and in all. It does not make any difference what nationality a person has, because the Lord removes it anyway. He takes the Jew and makes him generous. Christ in the Jew becomes a giver. Christ in an Irishman makes him gentle. Christ in a Frenchman makes him stable. Christ in an Italian makes him long-suffering.
With all the different nationalities and peoples, Christ is all and in all. He changes us and gives us a new heredity, a new disposition, a new nature. We must become accustomed to thinking that our completeness is in Christ because this is the key to the renewal of our minds. We are complete in Christ. There is nothing lacking.
You may yet see much that needs to be done in you. But you will never see it done as long as you look at the faults and try to correct them. Fill yourself with God, and He will invade every area of your life.
We have talked about being complete in the Lord. We have talked about being filled with all the fullness of the Lord. Then what do we do?
We cooperate with what God is doing. In order to fill us, He first has to empty us; and it is that emptying process that we are experiencing now. One thing we must do is discard the feelings and thoughts and emotions of futility. Those must go!
Have you recently been assaulted with more doubts and delusions than ever? Do you feel that Satan is really working you over? Good! Satan would not be doing that to you, if you were not ready to break through into the victory.
The spirit of futility is deep-seated, but after the first principality falls, the rest will be easy. No one has yet walked in this authority, except in a small measure. The first man or woman in Christ who reaches through and pulls down one of these principalities of futility and frustration will see a new realm loosed.
At one time, years and years would go by, and very rarely would someone speak in tongues. But after the first breakthrough came, the word got around that the experience was available; and people everywhere were filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking with other tongues.
The principle applies even to the natural realm. After one man runs the first four-minute mile, another man believes he can, and then another.
We are the ones who will manifest the first fruits of the Spirit. Someone has to do it. Someone must face this tidal wave of futility and frustration and stand against it, believing God for the manifestation of His sons, and for the fullness of Christ to be manifested. Someone must believe for more than just a trickle of blessing. There must be a flood. Someone must come to Christ to drink; then out of his belly will flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). The fullness has to flow, and this is the time.
At any cost, the spirit of futility must be broken within us. We must lose our sensitivity to this frustration Satan is bringing to us and walk in the faith that shouts joyfully in the presence of the Lord.
We must overcome the heaviness that is upon our thinking. We must throw it off.
We take dominion over it in the name of the Lord; it is brought down by Christ’s authority. We claim all authority, all rule, all power in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We prepare our hearts right now for every good thing that the Lord has prepared for us.
Whatsoever the people of the Lord do shall prosper. This is the blessing upon the man of God: whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:3b. The spirit of fullness, that spirit of victory and release that is upon us by God, gives us the inner dominion. Then the outer circumstances will conform to the spirit that is in us.