MANATEES!!

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 ‘Manatee’ by Maegan Luckiesh on Unsplash.                                            

Aren’t they cute!  They are also called ‘sea cows’, because of their size and the fact that they eat grass.  Only in this case, sea grass.  These ‘sea cows’ can be up to 13 feet long and weigh as much as 1,300 pounds!  They eat over 60 different freshwater and saltwater plants.  They inhabit shallow, marshy coastal areas and rivers of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and West Africa.

They eat 10 to15 percent of their body weight everyday which requires them to graze 7 hours a day!                                                        

Manatees eat a lot of sea grass!!!  This keeps the grass short and from becoming overgrown which helps keep the sea grass beds healthy.  They also consume hyacinth and other invasive plant species which improves the health of the ecosystem.  AND (unwittingly) fertilize the sea grass and other submerged aquatic vegetation.  

(What goes in must come out!)  

There was once a Garden of Eden whose Spiritual ecosystem was perfect!  Adam and Eve walked with God!  They could hear His voice, had food provided for them and were given dominion over the earth.  But an invasive species, the devil and all his fallen angels invaded the Garden and convinced Adam and Eve to disobey God.  Adam and Eve became separated from God and the devil got his wish.  ‘He ascended above the tops of the clouds; he made himself like the Most High’.  Isaiah 14:14. Three titles that point to satan’s authority in this world today—the ruler of this world (John 12:31), the god of this age
(2 Corinthians 4:4), and the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2).  
2 Corinthians 12:4 says that Satan transforms himself into “an angel of light,” a description that highlights his capacity and inclination to deceive.

But God had a plan!  He sent the Holy Spirit to ‘live with us and in us.’  John 14:16.

‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.’

This Holy Spirit who now lives within believers in Jesus Christ is called ‘the restrainer’.  ‘And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.’  
2 Thessalonians 2:6. KJV.  He was sent to reconnect us with God our Father and to maintain the spiritual ecosystem on the earth through His people! 

Think about it!!!  What would the world be like without the restraining power of the Holy Spirit?

Without people led of God and filled with the Holy Spirit to do and be what they are called to be.  Who pray, ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven….thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’  Without the church and its symbolic presence for good in this world? 

‘The church, indwelt by the Spirit of God, has always been part of what holds society back from the swelling tide of lawless living. At some point, Paul says, the Spirit will “step aside” from His restraining work, allowing sin to have dominion over mankind.  2 Thessalonians 2:7 can be literally rendered, “The secret of lawlessness is already working, only it cannot be revealed until he who now withholds disappears from the midst.” We believe this “disappearing from the midst” will happen at the time the church leaves the earth at the rapture.  The Holy Spirit will still be present in the earth, of course, but He will be taken out of the way in the sense that His unique sin-restraining ministry—through God’s people—will be removed.  As the scripture says in Genesis 6:3, ‘Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever.’  gotquestions.org.

Meanwhile, what are you doing to help ‘restrain’ the ‘swelling tide of lawless living’.  What is your ‘unique sin-restraining ministry’?  What does the Holy Spirit want to do through you to help restrain the power of sin in our world today?  

Let Him work through you to help maintain the health of His spiritual ecosystem!