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Jesus is in the process of making Christians perfect, as He is perfect

If so, can we expect all Christians to be nicer than all non-Christians?
Not necessarily -- we have to start from where each Christian is
A Christian should be becoming nicer than the person they were before they started following Christ (before He started his work in them)
A tree is known by it's fruit
When Christians fail to act Christian, we make Christianity unbelievable.
Some people are just born with better dispositions than others...
Christian is a process of transformation... some becoming more Christlike.... sadly, some becoming less... some confused and inconsistent

So, what of the individual?

They should be better people than they would have been without Jesus
They should be becoming 'better' after accepting Jesus
The question is not Person A vs Person B, but Person A with Jesus compared to Person A without Jesus
The evidence will not be the same in every life, and is impossible to judge from the information we have available to us.

Improvements:

Illustration of two factories
The factory manager starting with an old run-down plant will have to make improvements, but must continue putting out the best possible product at the best possible rate (though low) available today.
The factory manager of the plant in good condition may very well put out a higher volume of product, but that does not mean it's the best possible for that plant or at the highest possible volume.
The run-down plant manager will make improvements, but it takes time to get resources available to do that.
We should expect to find some Christians who are "still nasty" people as God works on them

Natural causes:

A person with a placid temper, and friendly disposition is not in a better position than the wretched, insecure person
It is very likely the case that the person of good disposition may not be aware of the need for salvation
... while the "wretch" is painfully aware of their need for God's provision of salvation

God can help us, but He will not force us:

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Submitted by havoc on Mon, 2007-09-17 00:05.