Singular for Christ's Sake.
By Spurgeon
If you follow Christ fully, you will be sure to be called by some ill name or other. For, first, they will say, "How singular you are!" "Mine heritage," says God, "is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her." If you become a true Christian, you will soon be a marked man. They will say, "How odd he is!" "How singular she is!" They will think that we try to make ourselves remarkable, when, in fact we are only conscientious, and are endeavoring to obey what we think to be the word of God. Oftentimes that is the form of contempt; practical Christians are set down as intentionally eccentric and willfully odd. Mothers have brought that charge against daughters who have been faithful to Christ, because they would not go into gayety or indulge in vain apparel, and many a man has said it to his fellow-men by way of accusation, "You must be different from anybody else." This difference, which God has made a necessity, men treat as a mere whim of their own. If we do not come out from among them and be separate, we cannot expect to be housed beneath the wings of the Eternal; but if we do, we may reckon upon being regarded by those around us as strange, unfriendly creatures.—Spurgeon.