EXCITING NEWS: We just launched a coffee blend!
The Malachi Daily Blend is here, and every subscription helps lift a specific child out of poverty in Jesus’ name. Much more on that below!
In today’s email…
☕ The who, what and why of the Malachi Daily Blend
📕 The question James asks right before our verse, and why it stings
❤️ A passage to read and one question to sit with
📊 Trivia to test your knowledge on our memory verse…
MEMORIZE 🧠
______ yourselves therefore to God. ______ the devil, and he will ____ from you.
James 4:7
Want to memorize in your favorite translation? Try our new iPhone app here.
MALACHI DAILY X GRACE COFFEE
The Who
For a lot of us (especially my wife Dana 😅), coffee and Scripture go together.
So when my friend Claudio told me about how his new coffee company lifts children out of poverty in Jesus’ name, we immediately set to work figuring out how to collaborate.
Long story short, Malachi Daily teamed up with our (literal) friends at Grace Coffee to make our own blend!
The What ☕
Our coffee blend is a medium roast, smooth with a crisp finish. It's made from top 5% specialty-grade beans, organically grown and roasted fresh in small batches.
The Why ✝
Our favorite part? 50% of Grace's profits help sponsor children in need through Compassion International®.
Which means that when you subscribe…
You're helping give a child nutritious meals, safe drinking water, an education, and the hope of the gospel.
You see the specific child your coffee helps sponsor, including their name, their country, their photo (like this 👇)
Their photo arrives as a postcard with your first order, so you can stick it on the fridge and pray for them by name (our family sponsors Wency from the Philippines, which is where my mom is from!)
You can even log in and send your child a note of encouragement, or the verse you're memorizing that week!
As a Malachi Daily reader, you get:
42% off your first subscription order (including a free Grace Mug!)
Two 12 oz bags of beans or grounds each month
Free shipping
No commitment. Skip, pause, or cancel anytime.
It’s a simple way to take something you already do (drink coffee) and use it for kingdom impact! Click below to try the Malachi Daily Blend.
CONTEXT 📕
Some of the habits we encourage you to form when reading Scripture are:
to get curious and ask questions of the text
to look up other passages that speak of similar themes
to look at the overall passage to better understand a single verse
Today, let’s walk through these habits in action.
1. Let’s start with “therefore.”
If I’m not careful, I can go through the motions of reading the Word without allowing it to pierce my heart.
Whenever I read the word “therefore” in a Bible verse, I pause and ask: “Why is that there?”
But before getting to the “therefore” in our memory verse, note that James asks an important question (v4):
“Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”
This is a struggle we know all too well.
We might not be persecuted in the literal sense like many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, but our Christianity still demands that we live differently from the world around us.
2. When you hear something that sounds familiar in Scripture, dig deeper and you might find dots connecting.
The mention of the “devil” in the memory verse reminded me of that verse about the prowling lion, but when I looked it up I was genuinely surprised to find that our verse has a very similar pattern to what Peter wrote:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him…
This verse defines submission as humility, and includes the importance of being watchful of anything trying to pull you away from God’s presence.
3. Let’s zoom back into the passage.
The verses surrounding James 4:7 are not merely a vague description of how to live God’s way, but rather some very clear commands:
submit to God, resist the devil (v7)
draw near to God, part with sin (v8)
feel remorse for sin (v9)
humble yourself before God (v10)
speak life (v11)
So when we look at the broader passage containing James 4:7, we find that it is part of a response to a question, a call to humility, a command, and a method for engaging in spiritual warfare.
APPLY AND RESPOND 🏃♂
📖 Read: James 4:4-11.
👂️ Reflect:
In what way am I living like a friend of the world and not a friend of God?
🙏 Pray
Father, please give me a deeper desire for closeness with you, to truly be your friend. Guide me by your Holy Spirit to get rid of the sin that stands between me and you, because your Son already paid the price. Amen.
TRIVIA 📊
Click one of the options below to choose your answer. Let’s see how you do…
In James 4, what does James compare your life to?
ANSWER KEY ✅
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7
Best,
The Malachi Daily team 🙏
Today’s Contributors
Eljoh is a South African writer, editor, and artist with a Master’s in Practical Theology. She creates resources to help believers of all ages abide in Christ and grow in faith. Explore more free resources and creative tools at Vine Creative Studio.
Kieran is a husband and father living in NJ. In addition to Malachi Daily, he writes a personal newsletter about the intersection of faith, fatherhood and entrepreneurship.
Go deeper with Malachi Daily
Pay it Forward
Malachi Daily is (and always will be) free thanks to generous readers who choose to support our mission! 🙏
Click here to support the mission for the price of a few coffees/month ☕️
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Try our iPhone app 📱
Want to go even deeper with memorizing Scripture and learning its context?
Our iPhone app, Within allows you to:
Memorize 1 verse every single week and learn its context through daily devotionals you can read (or listen to)
Memorize any verse you want in your favorite bible translation
Store all of your previously memorized verses in one place (and review them regularly with interactive games)
And much more!
What are the differences between Within and Malachi Daily?
Malachi Daily 📧 | Within 📱 | |
|---|---|---|
Type of tool | Email newsletter | iOS mobile app |
Cost | Free | 7-day free trial, then $5.99/mo or $49.99/year |
# of verses | 4 verses per month as a community | 4 verses per month as a community + unlimited for any verse you want |
Who chooses the verse | We choose | We choose AND you can memorize any verse you want, anytime |
Bible translation(s) | ESV | ESV, NIV, NLT, KJV, and NASB |
Reviewing previously memorized verses | You do this on your own | Use the built-in memory bank |
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