What crime are you capable of?

In the fictional world of novels and movies, there are goodies and baddies. The tension of the plot depends on the audience unravelling who the bad guys are and engaging with the good guys.

In real life, it's not quite like that. Jesus said, 'Only God is good.' That leaves all the rest of us lumped with the baddies - capable of any crime, including the thing we most condemn in 'the bad guys.'

What makes someone turn that potential for crime into reality? It's recognised that mental illness can influence decisions, by distorting perceptions and making the person believe, for instance, that they are under threat from somebody who in fact doesn't want to harm them. The influence of drugs can also affect perceptions and therefore decisions.

People may also be spiritually ill. Much less is understood about that.

But people who are ill, in any way, may not always stay ill. God can and does heal. Lives change. The goodness of God can override the evil that anyone is capable of.

So some people who have done terrible things - considered by the public to be definite 'baddies' or 'monsters' - can and do become overwhelmed by the reality and goodness of God, start trusting him with their lives, and start doing good stuff.

And some people who have always counted themselves among the 'good guys' may become over-confident in their own power to resist being harmful to others and to themselves and may slide into making allowances for moral slips and justifying dubious actions, till they suddenly find themselves doing something they would never have thought they would sink to.

So, how in real life do we tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? And how sure are you that you are one or the other?

God knows. The God who, alone among all of us, is good.