To Be Least

4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev 2:4-5)

      What did God hold against this church? The have "forsaken" their first love. What does forsaken really imply?

forsaken
1. To quit or leave entirely; to desert; to abandon; to depart or withdraw from; to leave; as, false friends and flatterers forsake us in adversity.

2. To renounce; to reject; to refuse.

[Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary]

      So obviously these Christians have abandoned, renounced their love of Jesus, the Son of God. If they do not repent, God will remove their "lampstand." What is the lampstand exactly?

20The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev 1:20)

      So a lampstand is symbolic for one of the churches. So God, if this church does not repent, will remove the church from them. All Christians have the Holy Spirit in them; a church is made of Christians. If these Christians do not repent for their sins, they will no longer be a church, the will not have the Holy Spirit in them. The Holy Spirit, as I pointed out in an earlier post, is a "deposit" which guarantees what is to come, eternal life in heaven.

I am interested what your interpretation of these verses is. God bless.