This scene from Schindler’s list is so powerful because it illustrates the difference between a person with a conscience and those without. Good people look back on the things they’ve done and wish they had done more good. A person without conscience is never troubled, no matter how many people he harms.
I am confident — and a little afraid — that all the accounts will be settled when we stand before God. I believe, based on my own experience in dealing with the Divine, that what we will experience is what we did to other people. We will feel the pain we have caused, and we will also know the joy and love we have given.
I don’t think anyone gets out of this life review/reckoning. The difference is that there is unearned and undeserved forgiveness in the Mercy of Christ. Without His mercy, every single one of us deserves to go to hell. Most people lie to themselves about this. We forget the pain we’ve inflicted, the harm we have done. We minimize and “understand” our own selves.
But the fact is, that we are fallen humans living in a fallen world and our righteousness is, as Scripture says, filthy rags when placed before God.
There is not one of us who can’t do more good than we are doing. There is not one of us who can’t love more, care more and, yes, do more.
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