Today's first reading which echoes Psalm 95:7b-11 is a commentary of God's continuing faithfulness to His Word in Scripture. God's Word is always alive as He speaks to us in our situation in liberative judgement and grace with a view to the fashioning of our future; disclosing new depths and possibilities which could have surfaced only in our particular concrete context.

'Today' is God's language for all time - in that sense for us; 'today is the first day of the rest of our lives'. In Jesus' mission statement (Lk. 4:21) Jesus proclaimed, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled" meaning salvation is now taking place even as we listen to His voice. The leper is cleansed immediately upon his request. God is always present tense!

Today we are urged to be on guard against procrastination. That is why "as long as this 'today' lasts, keep encouraging one another". And as faithful disciples of Christ we are urged to "keep a grasp on our first confidence, right to the end."