What does Revelation 2:11 mean?

Offering challenge and encouragement to those who listen to what the Holy Spirit says to the churches, Jesus challenges the believers at Smyrna to heed His message. It is one thing to read what Jesus tells us in His Word, but it is another thing to heed it—to take it to heart and act upon it. James compares the person who is a hearer of the Word but not a doer of it to a man who looks at his face in a mirror and leaves, forgetting what he saw (James 1:23–24). He adds: "But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing" (James 1:25).

Jesus promises the believers of the church at Smyrna that the second death—the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14)—will not harm them. God's people's final home is heaven (John 14:1–3).