No, I’m not writing about a fashion trend, or home decor. I was reading Numbers 15, and the Holy Spirit highlighted verses 37-41 for me. God is speaking to Moses and giving the Israelites some beautiful instruction on how to remember his laws. This comes just after the spies give a fearful report of the Promised Land, and the people choose to fear what the spies reported rather than fearing the LORD. God is justly angry, says he will wipe them out and start anew through Moses. Moses intercedes for them, and God listens and relents. Instead of killing them, he tells them they will wander for 40 years in the wilderness before they enter the promised land, and that none who saw his miracles since Egypt would make it there, except for Caleb & Joshua. Such a heart-breaking story. Then the LORD begins to give laws about sacrifices & unintentional sins for the generation who will enter the land. This one is so beautiful:

Vs. 37-41: The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the LORD your God.”

What jumped out to me was verse 39: “And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.”

He is such a loving God. I see that as such loving instruction. I’ve never noticed this part of Numbers before, and I love how the Holy Spirit highlights something for me no matter how many times I’ve read it. He knows his people are sheep. He knows they’re stupid. He knows they whore after their own desires instead of him. He knows they’ll continue in their whoring. He knows that our own heart and eyes do not lead us in His ways. He knows we can’t remember his commandments perfectly, let alone do them perfectly. He lays down the impossible command in verse 40, “So shall you remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God.”

I can’t do that. I can’t remember and do all his commandments. I can’t be holy. But he tells me to. He told the Israelites to, and I’m pretty sure they struggled with sin just as much as we do. So now what?

Well, at that point in history, Jesus hadn’t come yet. He hadn’t fulfilled the law perfectly for them or us. But this step is crucial: we need to understand God’s law and understand the perfection to which he is calling us. If not, we’ll think we’re good enough in our own eyes. But we don’t determine what’s right or wrong: God does. We don’t decide if we’ve obeyed or not: God does. It is CRUCIAL that we come face to face with the impossible perfection God asks of us, the Law that is written & defined solely by Him. We need to understand that we don’t measure up, and that we never could. We need to know the hopelessness of our sin.

If you know Jesus, you know the story doesn’t end there. Years and years later, Jesus comes, God become man, as a baby, lives perfectly, fulfills that Law perfectly, and dies as the worst of sinners in our place. He became our sin and gave us his righteousness. Did you catch that? 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to BE sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus became our sin. Jesus became the sin of the world. That means God the Father saw God the Son, Jesus, as if he had committed the sins of the world. He became in God’s eyes the worst pedophile, the worst murderer, the most unfaithful, the most hateful, the most revengeful, the worst abusive father, the worst wandering husband. He became the one who hated God and wanted to do things his own way. He became one who wanted to be righteous on his own. He became one who wanted to please people more than he wanted to please God. He became the worst idolater. He did this so that everyone, no matter what you have done, would have no more barriers between them and God. He did this so everyone could experience saving grace in himself, Jesus Christ. He did this because we had no way of saving ourselves. He did this, and not everyone will receive it. But to those who receive it, who know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, it is now as if you have never sinned in God’s eyes. You have Jesus’ perfection, because he took your filth and gave you his perfection. That is the good news of the gospel!

The good news doesn’t stop there. We’re saved by Jesus, and sanctified by him, and called to good works which were prepared beforehand, that we may walk in them (Ephesians 2). We’re adopted into his family, and yet still struggle with sin. He knows that, and this process of sanctification is making us more into Christ’s image. We’re called to imitate Jesus. In no way are we to become lazy and familiar with our sin, because we have died to our sin (Romans 8). Our old self is dead, and our new self is in Christ, and we’re called to put our sin to death. We’re part of a new family now! We WANT to put our sin to death! We don’t want the flesh, and as a Christian, we war with it! This process will never stop, I believe, until Jesus comes back. So get your boots on, and get comfortable with warring against your flesh!

So back to this idea of tassels. The LORD knows how faithless the Israelites will be. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’d do it differently if you were there. Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun, and I believe we struggle with the same sin that the Israelites do. We fail to love Jesus as we’re called to love him, and we fail to love our neighbor as we’re called to love them. We, too, crave our Egypt, our sins, our comfort, you name it. How absolutely loving and long-suffering of the LORD to give the Israelites guidance! He tells them they are inclined to whore after what their heart desires and what their eyes see. So he gives them a visual reminder on their clothes, something they will see numerous times a day (let’s say they see it an average of 20x a day). So 20 times a day, God gives them a reminder, which to me implies that they need reminding. They’re going to forget to keep God’s commandments 20x a day, or possibly more. They, too, are leaky vessels, who forget God. He knows we are dust, and he makes a way. He makes a way with tassels, and he makes a way with Jesus.

Modern-day tassels. For us, what are they? We’re living not pre-Jesus, as the Israelites were in Numbers 15, but post-Jesus, after his death and resurrection, after the coming of the Holy Spirit of God into his children who love him and trust in Jesus for their righteousness and salvation. Hallelujah! WE, God’s adopted children, are now the temple of the Holy Spirit! Now his law is no longer simply read to us, but written on our hearts! The perfect sacrifice has been made – once for all! No more need of blood shed to pay for sins! If you are a blood-bought child of God the Father, the law has been fulfilled for you. Rejoice and be glad! Remember any works you now do, you do from the power of the Holy Spirit in you, out of gratefulness to your risen Savior. The commandments Jesus fulfilled for us are indeed still our commandments, but instead of obeying them to become righteous, now we obey them because Jesus has made us righteous. We obey because we’ve been forgiven. We obey because we’ve been cleansed. We obey because it is the way of our Father, who loves us and who we love. There is wisdom for us in the tassel reminder, however. Our eyes and heart still incline us to evil. We still see and yearn for our idols. God, is there anything I can put around myself to remind me to keep His commandments and remember how Jesus kept the law perfectly for me when I fail?