Tall poppy syndrome

“Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.” 1 John 3:12
John gives an interesting insight into the reason why Cain killed his brother Abel, that we only see a hint of in Genesis. There, we read, “Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brough fatportions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.’
“Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him” (Gen. 4:2-8).
Many people read this and think Cain was hard-done-by. Abel was a shepherd, so it was natural for him to offer a lamb to God; Cain was a farmer, so why was his offering of the fruits of the soil not accepted? Because God had already told them, through the picture of His providing garments of animal skins for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21), that He required an offering of a lamb. What Cain tried to do was offer the works of his own hands. At that point God gave him a warning and a choice: to master the sin that was crouching at his door.
Cain was angry at God for not accepting his offering, and he took it out on Abel, his righteous brother who had done as God commanded. If we stand up for righteousness, we too will find that we are the victims of ‘tall poppy syndrome’. People in the world don’t like us, because by our lives we show that theirs are not righteous. But rather than repenting, they try to bring us down. This is expressed in John 3:19-20, they loved darkness rather than light.