I recently watched Seven Pounds, and it was a dramatic sorrowful story of reckless penance from a man who had lost his wife and killed several others in a car crash.It seemed like a sorrowful, selfish, and eventually suicidal death in a vain attempt to get rid of a debt he could never repay. But, it was also a reminder to me that althought we might tryt ot fix our wrongs and do penance, it will never be enough. This is why we need our Saviour and He has paid our debt for us, a debt we could not ever repay.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

And this passage begins with this:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This peace was the very thing he was looking for in his final days and was unable to find. Seven Pounds is a sorrowful examination of a lost person attempting penance on their own, that misses the redemptive hope that is only found in Christ.