{"id":5793,"date":"2025-04-03T04:49:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T09:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/?p=5793"},"modified":"2025-04-03T04:49:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T09:49:49","slug":"the-importance-of-words-emily-kuruvilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/2025\/04\/03\/the-importance-of-words-emily-kuruvilla\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Words (Emily Kuruvilla)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Matthew 15:1-20<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These verses express the importance of carefully watching our\u00a0 thoughts and words in addition to our actions while reminding\u00a0 us of God\u2019s all powerful and all saving love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the start of the passage, Jesus is judged by onlooking\u00a0 Pharisees who take issue with His disciples for breaking\u00a0 Jewish tradition in order to eat. Hearing their criticisms, Jesus\u00a0 rebukes them, explaining that true defilement comes not from\u00a0 external forces, but from within \u2013 \u201cWhat goes into someone\u2019s\u00a0 mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their\u00a0 mouth, that is what defiles them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we remain diligent in our Lenten commitments, this passage\u00a0 reminds us to be equally diligent in examining the words that\u00a0 come out of our mouth, and most importantly, our thoughts.\u00a0 Others see only our actions, but God in his omniscience sees\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">us all in all \u2013 our wants, our desires, and what lies in our\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hearts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>CLOSING PRAYER\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">O Gracious Lord and Heavenly Father, We come to You\u00a0 imperfect and sinful, but in Your love and mercy You forgive us.\u00a0 You know our innermost desires; You see us in our flawed\u00a0 entirety and love us the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We pray that You may use this season to cleanse and renew\u00a0 our hearts so that our thoughts, words, and actions may reflect\u00a0 Your love and truth. Help us to guard our hearts from sin, and\u00a0 guide our words so that they may honor You. May the words of\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our mouths and actions of our hearts be acceptable to You, o\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lord.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We ask all these in Your most Holy and Precious name, Amen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 15:1-20 These verses express the importance of carefully watching our\u00a0 thoughts and words in addition to our actions while reminding\u00a0 us of God\u2019s all powerful and all saving love.\u00a0&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lent-reflections"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/respect-2.jpg?fit=650%2C333&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5796,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions\/5796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}