Thank you for your thoughts.
I agree that "churches" are people, not buildings. I just feel that the admonition from Christ is much more specific than not loving God or others. That is His message throughout His ministry.
As Revelation is about revealing and after reading 1:18, I think the "wiggle room" is taken away. Jesus declared:
"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am
alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and
of death."
To me, what He says after that statement must be taken to heart and not wiggled with.
His message points out the good these churches and or people do but tells them more will be required. At least, that's how I understand it.
The "wiggle room" I'm referring to concerns my musings beyond the revelations of God the Father in (1) the Person of Jesus Christ, (2) the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, (3) Scriptures and (4) Creation.
But that is my personal epistemology - how I know what I know and how certain I am that I actually know it. Truth for me is only contained within the revelations - everything else, including sensory perception and reasoning are uncertain, e.g. "musings."
Certainty and Spiritual knowledge can vary widely among Christians - according to God's will and our efforts to "work out our own salvation." But we shouldn't be anxious about it. After all, doubting Thomas was an apostle too.