Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
- Colossians 3:12

In today’s passage, Paul describes his readers as “God’s chosen people,” “holy” and “dearly loved.” Their identity comes from their relationship with God, the work God’s done to transform them and the affection God has for them.

Let’s not rush past that. While the rest of the verse tells us what we need to be about, these “identity markers” of being chosen, holy, and dearly loved are the fuel for everything that follows.

Much of our insecurity and difficulty with love comes from the fear that we’ll never be chose, holy or loved. We fear being unwanted, unloved, never reaching our full potential. So we’re not compassionate, kind, humble, gentle or patient. Who’s got time for these when we’ve got so many needs to meet on our own strength?

The Scriptures tell us that God takes responsibility for our well-being.

We all instinctively organize our self-understanding around other people and institutions: “I am a mom/engineer/farmer/computer geek/entrepreneur/etc”—those are all identity markers based on who or what we’re relating to.

We weren’t made to live in isolation. Paul urges us to organize our identities primarily around the Lord and how he names us.

This brings us to a hard reality as we’re talking about what leads us to a life of “happily ever after.” A spouse is not and can never replace God. We can’t draw our identities from our marriages or our friendships or our children. They can’t carry that weight. They were never meant to.

Who do you find yourself drawing your identity from someone other than God? Take time today to ask God to help you to lean on him for your identity.