‘As many as I love, I reprove and punish for their own good. Be zealous therefore and repent (have a change of heart and mind).'
(See Proverbs 3:11-12 for the idea of chastening, cited in Hebrews 12:3-9). The word for love is philo meaning great affection. Jesus wishes the Laodiceans to know that His heart reaches out to them, that His love is not dependent on their deserts. As God as Redeemer says in Isaiah 43:3 ‘you are precious in my sight and I have loved you', while in Deuteronomy 7:8 Israel are reminded that they were not loved and chosen because of anything in themselves, but because God had set His love upon them. Indeed He drew them ‘with the cords of a man, with bands of love' (Hosea 11:4).
His reproof and chastening are proof of that love. In the Old Testament God told His people, ‘And you will consider in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you, and you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and fear Him' (Deuteronomy 8:5-6). Thus when the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews were discouraged at the tribulation they faced, the writer told them ‘For whom the Lord loves, He chastens' (Hebrews 11:6 quoted from Proverbs 3:11-12), and, ‘If you endure chastening God deals with you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not chasten?' (Hebrews 12:7). This suggests that Jesus is expecting tribulation for the church at Laodicea and is thus preparing them for the trials that lie ahead, and explaining its purpose so that they may benefit from it. It is because He loves them that they will be chastened.
‘Be zealous therefore and repent'. This ‘change of heart and mind' is only demanded of four churches, one of them because of the heresy in their midst (Pergamum), one because they have lost their first love (Ephesus), and the other two (Sardis and Laodicea) because of the failure of the whole church as a result of their lax state. Refusal to hear means the lampstand being removed from it place (Ephesus), an attack with the sword of His mouth against the offenders (Pergamum), and the arrival of Jesus as a thief to catch them unprepared by His coming (Sardis). To the church of Laodicea He gives similar warning of His coming.