32. What warning did John give, and how can we apply it?

³² Whatever our economic situation, the Kingdom should always have first place in our lives. It is vital that we never lose sight of the words of the apostle John: “Do not be loving either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15) True, we have to use the world’s economic arrangements in order to survive. (2 Thessalonians 3:10) Hence, we ‘use the world’​—but we do not use it “to the full.” (1 Corinthians 7:31) If we have an excessive love of material things​—the things in the world—​we no longer love Jehovah. Chasing after “the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life” is incompatible with doing the will of God.d And it is doing the will of God that leads to eternal life.​—1 John 2:16, 17.