You are a champion of the Universe. You are a supporter of it, and you cheer it on. You are a sponsor. Life in the Universe is a kind of group sport, beloveds, only, when all is said and done, there is One Team, and there is no other team to play with or against. There is One Team in the whole Universe, and you are on it.

No one is on the sidelines. No one. Even if you hide in a corner, you are on the field. You are a player. How you play is up to you. It is not up to anyone else.

You have grown up with the idea that you are in need of repair, and so you look for something to fix you. You look for something outside you to fix you or to affix to you in the hopes that it will make you better in this way or that. You look for a remedy in a medicine cabinet or from a person who has a title of one kind or another, and so you bow to the world outside you. You look to the world for healing, and you renege on your own power, which is the power of God within you. You give yourself over to someone more confident in himself than you are in yourself.

Well, yes, you are an instrument of My love. Everyone is. What else could you be? Stay close to your own heart, beloveds, and you will know your closeness to Me.

Being an instrument of My love takes no effort, you understand. Love isn't something you do, for love is what you naturally are. That you allow interference to block your love, well, that is well known, yet nothing is to interfere with the love to be emanated from you.

It is like your love is hidden in plain sight, yet it is sometimes hidden by brambles and snips of this and that.

A rose grows without having a say about it, and yet a rose knows it is fulfilling its destiny.

A rose in bloom knows when it is loved. It feels the difference and adores being loved, and a rose always loves. A rose has awareness of its rise from rose hip to full-blown rose. A rose doesn't know the words, but a rose knows its own roseness, and is glad to be this one in a million rose.

A rose may be red, and it loves its redness even though the rose doesn't know the names of colors, and still a rose loves himself as he is.

In line with your being authentic, I would like to suggest that you stop apologizing for how you think and how you live and all that. You are a God Being who comes from strength. Not bravado, beloveds, but simple strength. When you think about it, why should you be timid about who you are and how you feel? Being you is the best thing you can be. You are not here to playact.

This reliance on the opinions of others is a big thing in your lives. Listen to others, but go by Me and yourself. When you allow others' opinions to rule you, you have abdicated yourself.

Opinions are only opinions. They are not edicts.

What do you gain when you follow the opinion of another and live up to it? What favor is gained? And what do you think you have lost when you do not? What is so important to you to be in the good graces of another? Is it important enough to deny the truth of yourself?

Above all, be true to yourself, and be good to yourself. Think well of yourself. Amplify yourself. Nourish yourself with favorable thoughts about yourself and others. Be in tandem with your self-regard and regard for others. They do go together. They are one and the same.

How much negativity you may hold for others is the exact amount of negativity you hold for yourself. This is so. It is also so that when you snipe at others, you are sniping at yourself.

You would be true to yourself if you only knew Who you are and what you are worth. You are true to a lesser version you have of yourself. You are true to that which is not yourself. Now you will be true to love. You will know that at every moment you have a choice. Decide now. Choose love. Given a choice, you certainly would, wouldn’t you?