Word For 2026: "The Year Of The Altar"

What if the most important decision you make in 2026 is where you build your altar? We share a timely word naming this year as a call to contend—fighting not with outrage or performance, but with surrender, purity, and a deeper intimacy that welcomes holy fire.

We unpack the contrast between the table of Babylon and the altar of the Lord, and why Mammon will test motives, ministries, and calendars. You’ll hear how to guard your gates—eyes, ears, mouth, and touch—so culture doesn’t hijack discernment. We also address the control dynamic many churches face, using the Jezebel pattern to describe how fear and insecurity can quench the Spirit. If you’ve felt delayed or overlooked, we explore Elijah’s hidden season at Cherith as a sign of protection and formation, not rejection.

From there we get practical: how to build a daily altar through worship, Scripture, silence, fasting, and confession; how to choose calling over comfort when money or platform dangle fast rewards; and how to listen more than you speak so love, not anxiety, drives your next step. The promise is simple and seismic: make room for the Word, yield to the Spirit, rest under love, and the fire will come. Stay on the altar long enough to be lit.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who’s hungry for renewal, subscribe for more teaching throughout the year, and leave a review to help others find this message. Whose table will you choose, and what will you place on your altar today?

Chapters

• 0:00 Word For 2026: Year Of The Altar
• 2:30 Prophetic Themes: Mammon And Babylon
• 5:00 Jezebel, Control, And Church Purity
• 8:10 Hidden In The Wilderness Like Elijah
• 10:40 Contending For Intimacy And Daily Surrender

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

I typically try to get a word for the year out prior to now, but there have been all kinds of technical things and just waiting on the Lord and also submitting it to some folks here at the church before I got to this point. And so as much as I wanted it to be prior to the year beginning, here we are. But I want to release this word into your spirit about the year of the altar. And the subtext to this is the year to contend, the year to contend at the altar. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, my strength and my redeemer, take over. Empower us by your word in Jesus' name. There are a lot of scriptural references in here that I won't have time today to go into. I really wanted to make this as concise and well packaged for you to consume it and digest it. And then the goal would be to continue to preach from this word for the coming year. So I'm going to begin here with the word I received from the Lord about 2026, the year of the altar. And it says, God will test many with the God of Mammon, the table of Babylon. The Lord is seeking those who will have an excellent spirit in Babylon. The Lord will seek to cleanse the church of the Jezebel infection. She will be judged. Rebellion will be exposed in government and the church. The Lord is looking for those who will truly seek him. This is the year of the bride and the bridegroom for greater intimacy, for greater purity. There will be twelve months of preparation for 2027. Turn from your politics and your false prophecies. Love does not seek its own. Turn to the Lord and surrender. There will be great tests in the land. Who will you serve? Contend. I hear the Lord say, Contend. Contend and occupy. Be my bride. You are mine, says the Lord. To contend is to fight. To contend is to battle. To contend is to love. To contend is to war. To contend is to love. To contend is to be mine. To contend is to be loved. To contend is to be my beloved. Suffer for me and fight. Fight with spiritual weapons. Do not resort to carnal weapons. You are not normal. You are kingdom citizens. You are mine. The valley of blessing. The year of the altar. God is calling us back to Him. Make more room for me, says the Lord. Dig wells of fellowship. Allow the Spirit of God to touch you again and again. Get filled daily with worship and bowing your heart before the Lord. Seek Him on your own mountain of worship. Seek to see Him daily. Allow the Word more room in your heart like the seed on Mount Carmel. Murder your idols and wait for the Lord. Put yourself on the altar. Build your altar with surrender. Make the altar your cross. Put everything on the line, especially your whole heart. No possessions or relationships or special habits or hobbies can usurp God in your life. Make time and make room and wait for the fire of God to fall. The Lord wants to douse you in his spirit. He wants to light you on fire, but you must make room for his word. You must allow him to fill you with his spirit. You must allow him to cover you with his love. And then the fire will come. The fire will come if you stay on the altar. Put your life on the altar. This is the word of the Lord to you for 2026. I do want to take a couple of minutes to say a few things. It talks about in the beginning the God of Mammon in the table of Babylon. Many of us are going to be tested because the Lord is looking for those who have an excellent spirit. Daniel was favored by God, but he still had to sit among wickedness. He had to dwell with wickedness, and he had to push the plate away and say, I'm not going to eat what I'm being fed. The Lord wants you to understand that this world wants possession of your mouth, your eyes, your ears. It wants to have possession of your nostrils, the gates into your heart. This world wants to have the gate of your touch so that you're carnal and that your gates are wicked. Your gates are carnal and they're not spiritual so that you can't hear, you can't discern, you can't walk, you can't live in faith. And so you've got to have some conscious moments in your life. And even God's speaking to some right now. What is it he's saying that you've been doing that looks like the world, that he's saying, you can't do this anymore? I need your face to shine. He also talks about Jezebel and the judgment coming. Jezebel is a spirit that is a principality. It governs nations, it governs churches, it is out to control. It works very closely with the spirit of control. This is what the Lord was talking to me about even this morning. And so what you'll find in a lot of churches is that they're not free to walk in the spirit. They're not getting a freedom of the move of the spirit. They're getting measures, but they're not getting the fullest measure God has for them in the seasons that they've been walking through because there have been people in their church that have quenched the spirit because of things in their own hearts that are really frankly based on insecurity and fear. And they don't want to see God in control. They don't want to see God moving because they can't control God. And there are some churches, the Lord said with me this morning, that you think that God has delayed you or God has not favored you because you haven't seen the explosive growth that you expected. You haven't seen the favor in certain areas. But God told me to tell you it's because you've been in a wilderness like Elijah. After Elijah proclaimed the word of the Lord that famine was coming as judgment against Jezebel's influence over the kingdom, and how she had quieted the voice of the king, that there was going to be famine for years, and it would not end until his word came to end it. And then during that time of famine, God sent Elijah to the brook Cherith and said, The ravens will feed you there. He put him in a wilderness to hide him. Many churches, many leaders need to hear this. God's been hiding you because you're favored, because you're pure, and you don't walk with this familiar spirit of false prophecy, witchcraft, and divination, prophecy that is for money and for prestige and for prominence. You're not in that vein. And I'm not coming to say anyone's name or judge anyone because God does good through everyone. He'd rather do some good than no good. And so I honor that in all people, but God is still a purifier. The Lord is a fiery furnace, turned up seven times hotter in some seasons in order to purify that which is being baked, that which is being produced. And so Jezebel in this year is going to be judged. And to church leadership, you know, anywhere, I want to encourage you to allow that to happen. And then contend. I want to talk about contending. In this year of the altar, your relationship with God is going to be tested. And this is not new, but this is a season where we're supposed to be in tune to this. That this is a year to renew your vows daily. This is a year to receive more of God daily. This is a year to be seeking him continually. It's a year to wait on the Lord. It's a year to sit at his feet. It's a year to bring into your lifestyle a greater level of intimacy and hearing and acknowledging him in all of your ways. But inside of that, there will be the enemy coming to test you, to accuse you, to bring false accusations, even because it's going to be new and peculiar and people won't understand. You've got to make him your bridegroom beyond anything else in this world and allow him to give you what you came for, which is a greater revelation of his love for you, to take fear out where fear doesn't belong. You're going to need to contend for this. You're going to need to contend against the temptation of money over ministry, money over ministry to who? Him. Will you take the job over the love of God for you in a certain season and for a certain people and for a certain situation? Daily seek him. Listen more than you speak. The Bible says, be quick to hear, slow to speak. I pray God gives you the fire that he prophesied to you at the end of this word. He says, if you wait at the altar, let's go there. He says, you must allow him to fill you with his spirit. You must allow him to cover you with his love, and then the fire will come. The fire will come if you stay on the altar. Put your life on the altar. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. It's your face that is gracious. May He lift his countenance upon you and give you peace. In the precious name of Jesus. Contend at the altar in this year on the altar. God bless you.