In this episode of What the Prophets Say, it's the first one of 2024 my friend. I'm joined in the studio by my dear friend Louise Reed and myself Emma Stark as we just start to release the beginning of the year blessing to you. Join us for another episode of What the Prophets Say. Happy New Year one and all and welcome to a gloriously rich and transformative 2024. It's another episode of What the Prophets Say with me, Emma Stark. Oh, what have I changed my name at the beginning of the year?
It's a Stark. Emma Starka and the sidekick is Louise Reed. Happy New Year Louise Reed and Happy New Year Emma Stark. How are you doing? Very good. Did you have a good Christmas? Yes, marvelous. Lots of glorious life, joyous memories, family and children. Wonderful. And all of that was rich. So here we go. Prophets love the beginning of the year. We are at our busiest at the beginning of the year. Everybody wants the word of the Lord. Deep and rich and accurate and encouraging.
Well, yeah, I don't know that I can promise all of that. I know exactly. That's what people are looking for. Well, yeah, if you will. Well, here in the British Isles, it's cold and the weather is not good at this time of year. The weather outside is frightful. Anyway, OK. I'm inside eating trifle. What? That's not the word. No, it's not. But we always make up our own words. Do you like trifle? Do you know something? It's really strange. I don't like trifle.
But my husband does because it's a tradition in their family. And do you know the other day, oh, a couple of weeks ago, I said to him, what would you like for your dinner? And he said, well, for afters, for pudding, sweet, whatever you call it and wherever you come from. He said, I really fancy some trifle. So I didn't make it. I went to Marks and Spencer's, which is just a quick advert for a wonderful supermarket. Other high street shops are available. Yes, yes, indeed.
And I went to the supermarket. Other shops are available. Yes, yes, indeed. And bought him a trifle. Do you know, it's funny, we used to have it every Christmas. My granny would make trifle as a pudding, as a dessert. It's a very British tradition, isn't it? I cannot stand it. I don't like it. I cannot stand damp sponge. Soggy. Soggy, wet sponge. And for some reason, you used fruit out of a tin rather than fresh fruit and then jelly on it.
And it's like it's like layers of a child's birthday party. Gone wrong with sprinkles on the top. I know there are some more elevated versions of it, but I think I'm so put off. I love custard. Crowned with tea tree. Yeah, I like custard. I love cream. But not cold. No, not cold. With soggy sponge. No, no, here we are. So sorry if trifle is your favourite dessert and you're into your British traditions, but this Irish contingent. Yeah, no. Are not up for it. There are better puddings to be had.
There are better desserts to be had. Absolutely. Having said that, we'll not get inundated with recipes. Quite, quite. But I think for the Queen's Jubilee, before she exited this mortal coil, there was an award-winning trifle to celebrate her last big. And apparently it was magnificent. And is she a trifle fan? No, she's British Queen. Even if she hated it, she could never admit it. No, that's true. I mean, she lost her crown if she said she hated trifle.
Are we even losing viewers by saying we hate trifle? I hope not. Some viewers may even be saying, quick Google, what is trifle? It's not worth it. It's just not worth it. But I have to say, my publisher at Destiny Image, he asked me to produce trifle for him when he was last here because it's such a British thing that I don't even do it. I'm looking through the window to my production team. Producer Todd, is trifle, do you get it, in America? He doesn't even know. He doesn't even know.
You're Californian, Todd. Surely you know. I can't hear him through the glass. He's just pulling faces at me. Have you? I ask him, this is done in sign language through glass. Have you eaten trifle? Yes. Do you like it? No, he likes it. He likes it. That's two Americans who like it. Well, it's only men so far that we have that like trifle. Larry Sparks, my husband and Todd. Well, there we go. Are you keeping the trifle industry afloat? He's nodding.
OK, this new year, we're going to have weeks of telling you what it's all about, but we'll give you a starter for 10, which is from a British show, but it just means the introduction. Yes. This is going to be a year of your greatest transformation. It's the year of the greatest transformation of the people of God becoming the Ecclesia. It's the year of the greatest rate of glory of God being visible in the earth. It's also a year of your greatest persecution.
The transformation will be yours like no other time or any other year you have ever experienced. You are going to notice measurably the change in yourself. And of course, when we look at the word transformation or we're transformed, it's three times in scripture. You know it three times in scripture. You get it in the Corinthians. You are transformed from one degree of glory to another. You get it in the transfiguration. Same word transformed. You also get it in the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This word that's three times in the New Testament isn't just a little bit of a light wash that starts to speak over your life. Oh, here have a little bit of an upgrade. It's a marvelous level of miraculous shift. It is the metamorphosis of going from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It's a level of radiant glory.
And so when you see the transfiguration of Christ on Mount Hermon and you see his elevated status and his face glowing and Elijah and Moses coming down to talk to him and Jesus is transfigured in their midst, we start to unpack the fullness of what that concept of transformation means. It is a level of your personal transformation or corporate transformation. It's a level of glory that is going to come to you in the midst of seasons of war, church splits and great sacrifice.
You and I Louise Reed and all of our listeners are going to go through glory transformation. Yeah. Let's get on board with that Emma. Yes. I mean, that's brilliant exhortation. I love it. Yes. And I think we're going to have an agreement and not just a mental assent, but a heart. Sorry, the pipe started to rattle in the building. I think God's in agreement. The plumbing started to shudder. That was quite significant. It was significant. I think that was a move of God.
Do we take it as an endorsement? I think so. Okay. But I think where we're going is we're wanting to get on board and believe that needs to be our decree this year over ourselves. Transformation is happening. Glory to glory, faith to faith, strength to strength. But we need it not as a concept. We're hungry for it as a reality.
And I mean, you already quoted this, but you know, Romans 12, one, you know, it comes, there's Paul urging us to sacrifice ourselves because there is the reward of the sacrifice which is transformation. I do think this is a year of sacrifice for the transformation. I think that let's talk about New Year's resolutions. Do you make them traditionally? Do you know what? When I was a child, I did. It was kind of as if everybody did it. You all had your New Year's resolution.
It was always, you know, get fit, get skinny and get happy. You know, that kind of thing. But no, not anymore. No, no, no, no. No, we're at the other end of that. Yeah. And I do think that it's well known that they never hold. You know, we understand that. And I think it's the sense that we have got to take seriously the level of glory God wants to put within us.
And if you make a resolution, the likelihood is we don't want to be in the same situation as you are in the resolution, the likelihood is we don't understand the price that you pay to make them happen. Exactly. And so I do think I would call this year the year of the rituals of seriousness in the sense of there's a reward for sacrificing. There's a reward for dispensing with my life. There's a reward where I want to partner with the gain of working with God in His glory.
I want to partner with the gain of the increasing of His government on the earth. I want to be part of what He's doing. But to be transformed, I have to get comfortable with the fact that the status quo in my life will have to shift. And that will mean that I lose or I sacrifice something for the joy or the reward of partnering with transformation and another level of His glory. So if I just say to the Lord today, yes, I want to be part of your glory. Yes, I want transformation.
Yes, I see that's open to me in 2024. And I just I'm flippant with it. Then you know that there's no ritual of seriousness. So there's no ability to be sustained in that. So you end up feeling like, oh, well, the prophets weren't real or the prophets were false because they told me glory transformation and I never got it. But there's always conditions to what God is doing.
And the condition is, are you prepared to be brave enough to lay down and dispense with your life to pay the price for the transformation and the trust of God of His glory and transformation to sit on you? And so I think don't make New Year's resolutions that you're not prepared to pay the price to make happen. Absolutely. I mean, I think when we think about New Year's resolutions, we're often thinking about the goal. We're thinking about the prize at the end.
That's a good thing to do in in any level of transformation. That's a good thing to do. We need something to see. And that's a really good prayer that we can pray going into 2024. But actually, God, where is the transformation? What's it going to look like in my life so that you can have that sight? But of course, even within the word resolution is the word resolve. You must be resolved about it because it's going to take three things. It's going to take faith. It's going to take obedience.
It's going to take sacrifice. And that hasn't changed in the whole of scripture. Right from the beginning of time. It's always been about faith, obedience and sacrifice. But that is the journey. The journey of sacrifice in order to have the reward of the transformation of this year. Yes. So there's a couple of prayers I want to put in your minds and offer to you as something that you can grab hold of and own. I always think when we start the New Year, I want to pray this.
God, anything that happened to me last year that is not a glory, that is a pain or that is a trauma, I now cut it off from holding or shaping me in this year. That you actually even stand up and you bring the sword of the Lord down and you say that which was last year's thing, it does not cross over in Jesus' name. But you also say anything I learned, anything that was for my benefit, anything that was a model of the kingdom that I acquired, I pull that into this year fully with me.
And so you release the prayers of division and you divide between that which was a ball and chain or that which was an attack or that which was a slander or a belittling, that which was an ungodly loss of your reputation, that which was a robbery spirit against your finances and you forbid its transfer into this calendar here. And there is a sense that you raise yourself up in a warrior place at the beginning of the year and you say that does not come with me.
That kind of in the words of Gandalf shall not pass. And you bring the sword of the Lord down and I think we hit these moments every so often where we have to pray like that. We have to say I'm not going to keep that burden of yesterday loaded upon me. I am not going to keep that fruitlessness. I am going to resolve that this is a year of fruitful transformation and therefore I slam the door shut.
And you might want to clap your hands with me so that there is a barring and you literally start the year with a command in the spirit to bar the assault of last year. Now I think there are moments you do this, right? I bar the assault from last year. I bar the harassing spirit. I bar the mauling spirit.
You don't have permission or access and now as I cut that thing off, I am able to enter the resolution for transformation without the shadow or the hangover of yesterday's evils, traumas, upset, hurt and pain.
And some of you not just need to clap your hands, stand up, bring the sword down, but you actually need to take off even the clothes as a spiritual act or the mantles that got their efficiency out of the mantles, the clothes that were your shape for last year because there is always a new becoming. There is always an upgrade of identity. There is a God who gives you more.
There is the God who trusts you with greater works of his kingdom and so in this resolution place, this transformation place, you start with a barring and an ending rightly so that you can enter into the fullness of what God has. I do not want you to miss a moment of fullness this year. Yeah, absolutely.
And as you're saying that Emma, it is a joyful thing, but it's a serious thing because if any year we're getting more serious, 2024, the more he gives us, the more of his weight, the more of his glory, the more serious we need to be about taking hold of him who takes hold of us.
So, and there's a determination that we need and that's the word that's on my heart for our listeners to just loose determination in 2024 to walk the walk, the yielding, the sacrifice that's needed for the incredible transformation of what God wants to do and wants to bring.
And that's why the cutting off of the past is so vital because you want your heart open, your spirit open, your hands open, your physical body, your mind, everything fully open and available for the transforming power and to be determined and resolved with a level of seriousness towards and into his transformative power.
Good. I also think two other prayers I would love you to pray at this time, not only do you pray that for yourself, you know, I end, I cut, that does not cascade over, it does not overrun. You pray that for your children and those who belong to you and if you're in spiritual leadership, you pray that over your church in the name of Jesus. That what?
Death assignment, that suicide spirit, that infirmity spirit, whatever happens to be in whichever realm you have authority, it does not hold my people, my children, whatever. It stops right now and you push it into a barred and a prison place.
I think the other thing that you do, there are some things where we're always a little bit out of time, I think, because we tend to be a bit sluggish, where there are some things that you thought needed to resolve themselves by the end of the year and did not. So you always use January every year as a sense of demanding that Satan lets go of something that he is withholding. And so you start to say, right now, I pluck from the enemy's hand that which should have been resolved.
And in the name of Jesus, I call that this January becomes a time, not only where some things don't cross over, but some things that need resolved for my advancement are now resolved. And so there is a sense that we say paperwork that needs stamped gets stamped. Finances that need released get released. Wellness that should have been entered into is now entered into. Covenants that should have been growing gloriously now grow gloriously.
And I think God loves calendars, he loves rhythms, and he loves cycles. And it gives us this catch up moment where we say that that which should have been completed but wasn't completed is now completed in Jesus' name. So you get this barring, but you also get this completion. And it's a four week place of I bar you, you don't owe me, and this now gets completed.
And I resolve to be in time of the transformation and the receptivity of the glory of God and the transfiguration of my own life as I go through this year. Amazing. I mean, I can feel you have just shoved off all apathy. You're coming into 2024. We need to get a vision for 2024 and what God wants to do and is doing. And with that determination, and as you say, these four weeks of January, just making sure that business is done and is completed so that we can be propelled.
Actually, that's what we're doing. We're thrusting our listeners into 2024 with power and with strength and with might and with a level of seriousness. Yes. And the sense that you get to issue commands. You get to issue commands of completion and separations for a year of transformative glory. And don't be sluggish, my friend, and don't lose the anointing of the moment. Don't lose the capability of the moment to bring the sword of the Lord down and to pull in what you need pulled in.
I do think as well as transformation for ourselves and transfiguration in a year of transformative glory, you've got to know, loyal listeners, that this is around households, the household of God, your own personal immediate family household. Transfiguration transformation is the promise of God this year. In other words, church at the end of the year will look completely different to how it looks at the beginning for those who are willing to do that journey.
But families will look completely different because you can't just decree the word of transformative glory and then go, oh, well, that's just something private in my heart. No, my friend, this is the household of God and your personal household. And the Lord is saying to you, I will move on your children. I will move on your children's children.
I will move on the household that you have, whatever that looks like, whether blood or adoption or the friends that make your family group, there is mass glory transformation. And it is time to say not just I believe it, but I decree glory transformation over those in my household. Yeah, decree it and believe it and watch and keep a diary of the changes that you see and that determination.
Hold the decree and let the decree go to work on your behalf as you see transformation come to your family and to household of faith. And the other thing that I see really key for this year is the restoration of the strength of the people of God.
Wow. And for so long, I think I often deal with when I'm traveling the world and issues of fatigue and slumber in the house of God, both in the spirit, like just not being able to raise themselves up to war or to raise themselves up to expectation, but very practically as well the sleeplessness, physical sleeplessness of the people of God is a very continual battle. I know Sam and I, and you've talked about this repetitively and these kind of programs.
But the sense I think of the zeal of God is going to visit his people in a fresh way and the run rest cycles are coming into place this year. And this ability to hold the zeal and the energy of God for breakthrough is going to be in an unusual weight. You are going to be visited by the zeal and the purpose of God. And that is God not just making you enthusiastic or passionate, but that is an enablement of God to accomplish.
Let's not get lost in the shallow waters of zeal because you just turned to the scripture didn't you? I saw you turn to it. It's one of my favorites. And it's one of yours as well. It is. It's marvelous. Read it to us. Well, you know, we've just come out of the Christmas season. I mean, only just. I mean, this is a great portion for that time of year, but it's so much more than that. Okay. But I'm going to go for verse seven of the increase of his government and peace.
There will be no end continuous perpetual ongoing increase. Phenomenal. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing. Isn't that such a word of the season? Establishing and upholding it with what? With justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. Oh, the weight on this is tremendous. And then this is a bit that just gets me every time. It's like, oh, people of God, this is what you have now. Are you going to run with it?
And it's like, it's not just about running with it. Listen to this bit. It's the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. And even the word accomplish, there's a great sense of finishing. There's a great sense of our completion. Yes. And that the zeal. I mean, what is that? It's the hearty enthusiasm and the persistence of the spirit of God and the weight of God and the energy of God. Energy of heaven to accomplish this.
And it's very important that I mean, I pray that verse quite a lot, particularly when I'm zooming around the nations. God, would you give me your ability to accomplish? Yeah, I actually prefer that language. Would you give me your ability to accomplish what needs to accomplish? Because sometimes we miss a plight. You're like, oh, God, I just need a wee bit of an adrenaline rush. Like it's enthusiasm. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and then I'll collapse afterwards. It's not that.
And if I would pray a little bit, Lord, would you give me the anointing that I need to do what needs to be done? And because I know that my flesh is frail and I'm dust, but there is an anointing that breaks the yoke. So we're pulling a couple of scriptures in together. But my prayer is very often, would you give me the anointing and the capability to accomplish what needs accomplished, which is really the zeal of the Lord will accomplish.
So the sense, therefore, of praying that repetitively this year, I think it is there in a new level for the saints of God to not just stay in foundations, but to move beyond where they've moved by saying, God, would you give me the anointing to accomplish what needs accomplished? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And even as you're saying that, just the understanding that the zeal of the Lord is not like separate from us.
Yes. He's got the zeal, his very self within us, working with him, and it's just this incredible partnership with heaven to co-create with him what he wants accomplished. And you know what? That is the winning side. Amazing. Well, happy New Year. First, what the prophets say of 2024. You will be hearing from us as ever once a week as your partners for the expansion of the kingdom here. Establishment, expansion. And we're glad that you are with us for this journey.
Happy New Year. May the zeal of the Lord be known to you to accomplish all that God wants you to accomplish this year. We bless you. We send love and strength from Glasgow. Thank you for joining us for this episode of What the Prophets Say. Join us for Start the Year Right 2024 with Emma Stark, Sam Robertson, Jane Hammond, and other invited guests. We're going to be diving into the deep waters of what God is saying for this strategic and key year.
You will get strategy for your life and be equipped to overcome in the days ahead. Join us in Glasgow in Scotland for this landmark event.