‘But I have this against you that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you are fallen, and do the works that you did at first, or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you have a change of mind and heart (repent).'
The ‘works' that they ‘did at first' clearly involve love for Christ. Jesus constantly spoke of doing the works of the Father, one of which was that they should trust in the One Whom He had sent (John 6:29). This should they do, and not leave the others undone. How crucial it is that we keep our eyes fixed on Christ and not on the church.
These words are simple but they touch the heart. The love that they once had has now cooled down. Let them therefore consider the vision of the glorious Son of Man standing among His people and be enflamed with love for Him again. Otherwise their church will simply cease to exist. They will be removed from the universal church of Christ. It is clear from this that the ‘first work' for any church is to centre its eyes on the living Christ Himself. Without that their existence is essentially meaningless.
Possibly in mind here is the fact that Adam lost his first love when he sinned in Eden. Thus he lost access to the tree of life and to the Paradise of God (the Garden of Eden is ‘Paradise' in LXX, a Greek version of the Bible). The reward for restoring that first love will indeed be to enter the new Paradise (Revelation 2:7)
Israel also lost its first love. As the words of God in Jeremiah say, ‘I remember concerning you the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, how you went after me in the wilderness in a land that was not sown' (Jeremiah 1:2). But though God walked among them (Deuteronomy 23:14) they too lost their first love and eventually strayed far from God. How history repeats itself. God walked with Adam and yet he lost his first love, God walked in the midst of Israel, yet they lost their first love, and now it is happening to the churches.