If you are a Christian, you must resist that pressure to become ‘normal’. You aren’t. A change has occurred in you which results in a new way of seeing things. And you can’t undo it, or else you will always be miserable.

You can’t hold on any longer to your society’s sense of identity;you have a new identity in Christ which trumps all others.

You can’t walk by common, often perverse, standards of morality; you are under an ethic of love to everyone, regardless of tribe, class or race.

Authority, to you, has been modified. While modern thinking hardly moves beyond the state or the individual as the ultimate reference point, you rightly bow the knee to the King of the universe. This you will do even if it presents you as unpatriotic or ‘unreasonable’.

Priorities and values would also be different. You simply won’t love what they treasure. You may not esteem what they find delightful. You may cringe at their pleasures. For you see things rightly, however strange it might seem to your neighbours.

God and his will, for you, is what counts. Christ, to you, is the true treasure who defines everything else. The Spirit, in you, regulates how you now see and what you now do.

Don’t be pressured!