The Judgment

"O who can tell which judgment is the more terrible, the silent secret judgment, or the open glorious coming of the Judge. It will be most terrible certainly, and it comes first, to find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence, and to have brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words and deeds of this past life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself? And yet we shall be obliged steadily to confront ourselves and to see ourselves. In this life we shrink from knowing our real selves. We do not like to know how sinful we are. We love those who prophesy smooth things to us, and we are angry with those who tell us of our faults. But then, not one fault only, but all the secret, as well as evident, defects of our character will be clearly brought out. We shall see what we feared to see here, and much more. And then, when the full sight of ourselves comes to us, who will not wish that he had known more of himself here, rather than leaving it for the inevitable day to reveal it all to him!"
~John Henry Newman

"On that day [at the end of time] we will not be facing an unknown, faceless judge who has stern, by-the-book convictions. We will be facing our Friend. His hands still bear the wounds of the nails, and His voice is the same one that has been calling us all our lives. As He sorts between sheep and goats, it won't be hard for Him to tell which is which. A lifetime turns you into one or the other. It will be too late then to repent of all the goatish decades, which passed so gently, imperceptibly, one lazy day after another. At the end of a lifetime of living like a goat, it will be too late to turn into a humble, trusting lamb. Today is the day of salvation.

(Psalm 95:6-7) 'O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. O that today you would hearken to His voice!'"
~Frederica Mathewes-Green