The Ephesian church, which Paul once thanked God for because of its faith in Christ and love for the saints, is made up thirty-five years later mostly of second-generation believers. They fight evil, guard against false teachers, and labor with steadfast resolve to serve Christ. They keep doctrinal purity and stay busy, and by many standards they are successful. Yet they have left their first love, settling for something less passionate and more mechanical, with no deep, heartfelt devotion to Christ and the brethren. Many of today's churches, with full calendars and weary workers, fit the same description. Christ prescribes a three-part remedy: remember from where they have fallen, repent, and do the first works. Remembering calls for sincere self-examination, comparing present love with the former zeal and the goodness once experienced. Repenting means correcting their error and returning to the state of mind that newcomers have at baptism and initial justification. The first works flow from protos agape, a love that acts out of zeal to serve God by serving others, with no thought of reward, recognition, or reciprocal service, so that God's nature motivates the work. Christ threatens to remove the church's lampstand, meaning expulsion from the fellowship of the Body of Christ. A spiritual fall that is not corrected opens the mind to sin and to Satan's influence, and salvation is at stake. The warning is meant to create urgency to repent while time remains. Christ ends with the hopeful promise that the one who overcomes will eat from the tree of life in the Paradise of God.