1 John 2:15-17

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Like Jesus, John brings it back to the heart of the matter--who or what do you love?  We cannot love both God and money (or the stuff money can buy).  Jesus told us this in The Sermon on the Mount.  Either we will trust God to meet our needs or we will worry about where our next meal will come from or what clothes we are going to wear because we see ourselves as needing to supply our own needs.  John takes a slightly different angle though--"Do not love the world or the things in the world."  So what is "the world" that John keeps talking about?  Quite simply it is the "natural" things and "spiritual" that are opposed to the "spiritual" things of God.  This could include money and materialism like Jesus said, but it could also include power, politics, prestige, popularity, and even perversion and all kinds of wickedness as we fulfill our lusts and evil desires.  Our flesh and the spiritual forces of evil or in an alliance against the things of God and the "spiritual man" that God wants us to be, we just may not know it until after we are saved.

This natural world is dying because of sin and will one day face the judgement of God and will ultimately be destroyed.  We can't take any of our material possessions and our power, politics, prestige, and popularity mean nothing to God--the only acceptable sacrifice that we can bring to Him is to give Him everything we are so that we can become everything He wants us to be and to worship Him and enjoy living in His presence and in submission to His authority now and forevermore.  This is the will God for all of us, but it is a choice that all of us must make individually.  We must choose who we love more and what we love more.  We cannot be a citizen of two different kingdoms and be loyal to two different kings.  We will either be a citizen of "the kingdom of darkness" (the world) or "the kingdom of light" (what the gospel of Matthew refereed to as "the kingdom of heaven).  While Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" when Pontius Pilate asked Him if He was a king, there is a part of this kingdom that is here and now that lives inside of us as Jesus reigns in our lives, but there is another part of the kingdom that we yearn for and hope for that is "not yet" when Jesus actually comes back to earth, defeats all of His enemies, and reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords forever and ever.

Joshua 24:15 English Standard Version (ESV)15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”