Jeremiah 6:29 | Are You Being Refined in Vain?

We often say, “God is refining me,” but what if Scripture reveals that it is possible for the refining to happen in vain?

In this episode, Codie explores a powerful vision the Lord gave her that led her into Jeremiah 6, where God declares, “In vain the refining goes on.” Together, we examine the sobering reality that trials alone do not transform us—our response to the Refiner does.

Through Jeremiah 6, Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 36, Hebrews 3, Zechariah 7, and other passages, you’ll discover:

• What it means to be refined in vain
• How a heart of stone resists the work of the Holy Spirit
• Why some people experience God’s fire yet remain unchanged
• The difference between encountering God and yielding to Him
• Practical ways to identify areas of your heart that have become hardened
• How to invite the Great Physician to perform spiritual heart surgery

This isn’t a message about surviving another trial. It’s a call to surrender every chamber of your heart so the fire produces righteousness instead of becoming just another experience.

The fire is real. The pressure is real. But transformation only comes when the heart yields to the Refiner.

FOLLOW for DEPTH. STAY for TRANSFORMATION. 

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www.globalfootprintsministries.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, good morning. Oh, well, um I hope you all are doing well and I hope you're having a beautiful Wednesday today. I want to go um into a teaching that I shared this uh last week as I was out of town and um at a women's conference, and God really just moved on the hearts of these women. We saw many healing and deliverances, a lot of breakthrough. Um many women learned what actual surrender was, how to actually die and pick up their cross and die daily. Um, we went into great depth on what that looks like and the practical ways to do that. We shared um a lot of um practical um steps on how to start doing that in their everyday life. If you haven't been a part of one of our women's um events, I would encourage you to get connected and um get involved. It's it's very powerful. The Holy Ghost really moves on a powerful level in each one of these. So, one of the areas that we talked about is are you being refined in vain? That is um, I went into a vision before I spoke on this, and the Lord gave me this revelation of almost like people who are stepping into his refining fire, and they were actually net not getting changed. Um, it was like a fake fire, and I began to wrestle with the Lord a little bit because I was like, How can your refining fire be fake? Like, I don't understand that, it makes no sense, it doesn't even sound biblical to me. And so I asked the Lord, I was like, Where in the Bible does your word talk about this? Um, because you know, we can get visions and we can get dreams and we can get all those things that have revelation in them, but when they are from the Lord, they will always be supported by scripture. Okay, so I began to ask the Lord, okay, you're talking to me about this uh what you're calling fake fire, but I don't understand what you're saying. So he actually took me to Jeremiah 6, 27 through 30. It says, I have made you a tester of metals among my people, that you may know and test their ways. They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanderers, they are bronze and iron, all of them act corruptly, the bellows blow fiercely, the lead that is consumed by the fire, in vain the refining goes on. For the wicked are not removed, rejected silver they are called, for the Lord has rejected them. Again, that was Jeremiah six, twenty seven through thirty. This literally is the closest biblical picture of what he was describing to me in that vision. He literally was saying, People are going through trials and tribulations, they're calling it God is refining me, I'm in the fire. Yet after the trial and the tribulation, they never change, they never grow, they don't go, they don't transform. And he literally says the refining goes on in vain. Like when I when I studied this, I was like, wow, I didn't even know that we could step into the fire of God or be refined by our trials and our tribulations from God and literally not be transformed. To me, that sounds absolutely crazy. But he then began to take me to Ezekiel 11, 19. I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. So when I read that, I was like, okay, what does that mean? I don't understand. And he began to reveal to me that we can go through trials and tribulations in our life and we can actually be refined by God. But if we have a stony heart, we are actually going to resist the fire. We're actually going to resist the fire that God sends us to refine us and never get refined, never transform. So fire is present, pressure is real, but transformation does not occur. He says in Ezekiel thirty six, twenty-five through twenty-seven, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean, your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart, and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you, so that you will follow my decree and be careful to obey my regulations. So let's notice the progression of that scripture. God removes the heart of stone. Okay, this is hardenedness, resistance, spiritual numbness. Then he gives a heart of flesh, soft, responsive, teachable. Then he puts his spirit within us. The result is transformed living, walking in his ways. I love that part of Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27. It says, I will give you a tender, but this part is highlighted to me, responsive heart. So what I'm seeing is that we can actually go through trials and tribulations, we can actually call it the refining fire of God, but if we never respond, if our heart never responds, we go through those trials and tribulations, we go through the refining fire of God in vain. It's up to us to allow Him to actually change us. But if we have hardened hearts, we're resistant, um, you know, we don't want to step out our outside of our comfort zone. You know, we think that since we've been to Bible school and we've been in ministry for 30, 40, 50, however long years, that you know, we know more than you know the 20-year-olds that are being raised up by the Lord right now. We're not teachable, we're not responsive, we're not soft, we're very hard, we're very um, I know more than you, I have more experience than you. All those type of responses in your heart, and he's basically saying you're you have a heart of stone. And I've come to realize in my own personal life that there are areas that your home your heart can be stony, and then areas that your heart can actually be flush um and filled with the spirit. So, like uh for me personally, you know, I was kind of resisting God when he was asking me to um uh fast, you know, one time. And I remember him telling me, this area of your heart is stony. And I just thought, wow, like because I wasn't responding in um, you know, immediate obedience to shift and go into a fast for um to be prepared and you know what I was about to step into that I didn't even know I was stepping into, if I hadn't obeyed, then it actually would have hindered the hand of God in the lives of the people that I was going to minister to because I hadn't done my part in surrendering to the Lord and what he asked me to do, which was fast. Um, and so in that area, you know, he revealed to me like that that was really my conviction right before I I really surrendered and I did do the fast, but it, you know, he had to wrestle with me a couple days to get me to actually say yes. And I was like, wow, I didn't realize that a part of your heart could be kind of stony um and other parts be really receptive. So when I was teaching these women um this past week, I was describing the fact that, you know, there are different areas that could be stony in our hearts. You know, when we read this verse in Ezekiel, we just think, oh, he takes the whole stony heart out and he gives us a heart of flesh. But we have to remember that the heart, the heart has different uh parts, there's different chambers. If you study just a natural human heart, you clearly see that the heart has many different parts. Um, you know, and and maybe one part is is good, and maybe the other part is still stony and not responsive. And so I really encourage these women and I encourage you to ask God what parts of my heart are stony against you? Where am I not responsive? Where am I not teachable? Where is my heart hardened or I'm resistance to you? Um, and so those are the areas that he wants to transform so that we're not going through the refining fire in vain. Like, what if all this time on earth you go through trials and tribulations and hardships and you overcome and you know you see God's hand and he works it out and everything, and yet you get to heaven and he's like, You you have a heart of stone, like you never responded to me, you never transformed, you never never actually became a new creation, you never took on the image of Christ, you just went through the trials and tribulations for nothing. Like, wow, I mean, to think about that, that all the times that were hard and you overcame and they were all in vain, that would just be devastating. And so I think about that now in the in the natural today, and I'm like, wow, how many of us actually are going through trials and tribulations? We're calling it the refining fire of God, yet we never transform, we never change, we never overcome, we just go back into the same cycle again, the same pattern again, the same test comes around again, and we actually never change, we never become more like Christ, we never stop cussing, we never stop gossiping, we just continue to do the same thing over and over again, even though we are encountering the refining fire of God, we're actually even encountering God. Yet we are like Pharaoh who encountered God continuously with the plagues. He knew it was God, he even said, Your God is the God above all gods, yet he never changed. Why? God even tells us because he had a heart of stone. And yes, it says that God gave him that heart of stone. But it literally says in Jeremiah that the Lord has rejected them, they are called rejected silver because the Lord has rejected them. Why? Because the billows blow fiercely, in vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed. He's basically saying the wickedness in the heart is not removed, they go through the fire in vain. And it says they are called rejected silver because the Lord has rejected them. There's several other passages about hardened hearts. But they refuse to pay attention. They made their hearts diamond hardened, least they should hear the law. They made. David was confronted over his sin and repented. Peter denied Christ and was restored. Judas walked with Jesus and remained unchanged. Perhaps the issue isn't the refining fire. The fact that it was false, but that the heart never yielded to the refiner. So when I had that vision, I was confused because I was like, God, how is your refining fire false? That doesn't make any sense. You don't send false fire. And he showed me that it's not that my fire is false, it's that the heart refuses to yield to the refiner. It's not about yielding to the fire, it's about yielding to the refiner of God for transformation. A person can go through many fires, but if the heart remains stoned, the fire becomes an experience rather than a transformation. Um, I see this a lot in church. I see this a lot in the altars because we continue to see people come to the front for prayer, they come for an encounter, they come for an experience, they want the leader and the pastor to just lay hands on them and you know, boom, everything's better, and they're they're holy now, and and everything's taken care of, but that's not how it works. And the problem is, is we have a lot of really anointed people and leaders and pastors in the church, and they're coming down and they're praying for you, and you never transform, you never change. You go back into the world and you do the same thing over and over. It's not that the minister is false, it's that you're false. It's that your heart is stony, it's that you didn't respond to the anointing on their life, you didn't respond to the fire and the power on their life, you didn't respond to the refiner that is working through them to help you. You come and you cry for help and you go get help, what you, you know, quote unquote, think is help, but actually you just want the minister to do everything for you, and really it's your fault because you have a stony heart and you're not responsive to the fire that they carry, to the anointing that they carry. So everybody, you know, we walk around and we talk about all these, you know, false prophets and false teachers and all these things, and I'm and I'm beginning to realize that a lot of the time it's not even the minister that everybody's blaming it on, it's the people that the minister is ministering to that never changes, that never transforms because they don't respond to the refiner God. And then they blame the minister, they blame everybody else. But actually, it's it's their heart. It's it's a peace, and and there, like I said, there could be parts of your heart that respond, and then there's parts of your heart that don't. Hebrews 12, 11, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Are you allowing God to train you? Many, many people would say yes, but really their heart is saying no. You can tell if somebody is being refined by the fire because you will begin to see transformation, you will see change, you will see them turning from their wicked ways, you will see them stop going to the bars and and doing all the the drunk stuff, like they're going to church and and they just continue to go back out and do the same thing over and over, and they treat the church and the body of Christ and the leaders and the pastors like prostitutes because they just keep coming back for their quick fix of repentance and and you know and this idea that if oh, if I go to church, then I'll be good and I'll go to heaven, but then they turn around on Monday through Saturday and they go back into the world and they continue to gossip, they continue to speak death over people, they continue to curse people with their words, they continue to walk in filth and and they don't begin to walk in righteousness, they don't choose to quit their job because their job is actually a hindrance and causing them to be a part of worldly things. Guys, you got to get to a point where you are allowing him to transform you, allow him to cut away some things that you need to depart from that are hindering your transformation. Um, I have a friend who is a firefighter, and I was talking to her and and sharing a video that the Lord gave me, and she um she said that everything was accurate in that video because in that video it talked about firefighters and how when they get a call that a fire is um in a house, that it depends on the structure of how the house is built, um, according to how much time they have to get there to help save the house. So if the house is like vinyl or say like a mobile uh modular home or um you know something real thin, then the fire consumes it quickly, really, really quickly. But it was talking about that when you have a brick home, it actually takes hours for the fire to get through the brick. And the Lord began to show me that um in stony hearts how the fire actually can't get through the brick, it's actually very resistant to the fire, and it keeps the fire from getting in to the core of the house, which is your heart, to actually allow it to be transformed. And allow you to go through true transformation. And so if we see that in um in in comparing our heart to our heart being built um with brick, which in um with firefighters, that's a positive thing, but what I'm talking about, that's a negative thing for the heart to be so stony and so uh built with bricks. And so the fire of God actually cannot get through. And so that's where I would just want to challenge you today. You know, the fire is real, the heat is real, but the wall is resisting every flame when it is built of brick. Spiritually, some people can spend years in the fire yet never allow God to penetrate the heart. They testify about the heat, but never experience transformation. And uh the Holy Spirit revealed to me that some testimonies that people give about their hard seasons and their trials and tribulations, they begin to express these as testimonies and actually they're false testimonies because they never actually brought transformation, it stopped at the stony heart of the person, and so yeah, they went through trials and tribulations, and the trial and the tribulation ended, yet the person never transformed, they never turned from their wicked ways, they just continue in this cycle of this fire from God that actually is resisted by their own heart because they don't respond to it and they don't transform, they don't uh respond in humility and they don't surrender inside the core of their heart. Why? Because their heart still is stony against the refiner, not against the fire. But in Ezekiel 36, 26, he says, I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. We don't perform our own heart transplant. Ezekiel 36 is a promise of what God does. I will remove the heart of stone, I will give a heart of flesh, I will put my spirit within you. The invitation isn't go soften your heart, it's bring your heart to the great physician. It's his grace, not human effort. So I want to ask you some questions. Where have you stopped feeling conviction? This is a sign of having a stony heart. Where have you stopped feeling conviction? A hard heart is often revealed not by obvious rebellion, but by areas where we no longer sense the Spirit's prompting? Where have you stopped repenting? What sin have you started calling? Oh, that's just who I am? Where have you become comfortable instead of surrendered? Is there someone you refuse to forgive? Where have you stopped expecting God to speak? What area of obedience have you delayed? The areas where you no longer feel conviction may be the areas that have to become stone. I want you uh this week in your prayer time, I want you to, I don't know if you could find a stone outside or wherever you can find one. And I want you to practically give God that stone and allow that stone to be a representation of the area that he's calling to surrender in your heart right now. Maybe it's your whole heart. Maybe you've never fully given your whole heart to God and allowed him to give you a heart of flesh that will respond. Maybe you have in the past, but there's an area like there was in me of fasting. And and I had fasted before I had um I had done many, many fasts over the years, but it was like this one fast that I was just resisting God, and he was like, Your heart has become stony in this area because you're not responding to me. And so maybe you're like me and you have responded in a past season to an area, but this season you're not responding to that same area anymore. Maybe your heart has become a stony in just that one area, and you need to surrender that as your stone. Give him that stone and surrender, and just get on the heart surgery table. Just get in your prayer time, and I don't know if you can lay on the floor or you know, just like you're laying on a hospital bed with Jesus, and just say, God, I need you, the great physician, to do my heart surgery. I need you to search me, oh God, like David said. I need you to just allow him to be the great physician and search the heart, the parts of your heart that are stony, that need healing, that need transformation. Sometimes we have to practically get a stone and give it to God. Sometimes we have to practically lay down on a you know hospital table in our vision and lay down on the floor and spread our arms out like we're on the cross and just say, God, I need you, I need you to do heart surgery because my heart, there are areas that I'm not responding to you. There's areas that have grown cold. And it's not for us to do anything, but it's for him to fulfill his promise in Ezekiel that says, I will give you a heart of flesh that is responsive and that listens. A surgeon cannot operate on someone who keeps pushing his hands away. We have to get to a point where we say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And we can even say that in a place of asking him to forgive us. Father, forgive me, for I know not what I do. The old heart doesn't get repaired, it dies with Christ. The new heart is resurrection life. Galatians 2 20 says, My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself gave himself for me. Sometimes people think a soft heart means crying. It doesn't. A soft heart is simply one that responds. We can pray, Lord, make me interruptible, make me correctable, make me teachable, make me quick to repent. Those are characteristics of a heart of flesh. And I want to end with this promise. God never exposes a heart of stone to shame you, He exposes it because He intends to replace it. That's the hope of Ezekiel thirty six. The Lord doesn't say soften your own heart, he says, I will remove it. So this week let's learn how to die with Christ and allow him to crucify those areas that are stony in our heart so that we can also resurrect with Christ, so that we can have a um the same encounter that Jesus had on the mountain, the mountain of transfiguration. You should actually go through that process in your life where you were also transformed. Um, Moses and Elijah were there, and they actually became one with Christ in the vision of the disciple, and so it's we we need to encounter that as well. We need our old um and our new, we need everything to come into one Christ. We need to be in Christ, we need to be walking as the feet and the hands of Jesus on this earth. So I love you guys, and I challenge you this week. Um, do some practical things that um the Holy Spirit leads you to on how to actually surrender, how to die, how to actually allow him to do heart surgery. And I promise you, the more you do this with the Lord, and the more you learn to surrender in the places that to be honest, most of the time we don't even know we need surrender, but when we learn to get to the feet of Jesus and just sit with him, he will be the one that says, Hey, actually, in this area, you got a little bit of stone in your heart, and I need to take that out. Can you just lay down on that table and and let's just do that surgery real quick? And you learn how to lay down quickly, you learn how to surrender quickly and say, Oh gosh, yes, Lord, I was doing that. And wow, um, yeah, I did do that, and I I was not responsive and I was resisting you, and I'm sorry, but yes, Lord, let's get that back into alignment. Um, go ahead, do the heart surgery. I'm here, I'm available, and just take that time with the Lord to actually be available. So I love you guys, and uh, we will chat next week. Um, don't forget, stay connected. We have uh women's conferences, we have retreats, we have many things that we do that um really we see a lot of uh transformation come out of those just in helping people learn how to actually surrender and um allowing the Holy Spirit to move and transform people's hearts. So love you guys and talk to you later.