Serbian Patriarch Porfirije has urged believers not to allow material possessions, knowledge or personal abilities to become obstacles on their path to God.

The patriarch made the remarks on August 23 during a liturgy at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Belgrade’s Kumodraž district.

Addressing worshippers, Patriarch Porfirije explained the meaning of the Gospel parable of the rich young man who asked Christ what he must do to receive eternal life. The story, he said, is concerned not so much with abandoning possessions as with a person’s relationship to what he owns.

“Let us not allow what we have to possess us,” the patriarch said.

He stressed that wealth, knowledge, abilities and even virtues do not, in themselves, make a person superior to others. Rather, they should be regarded as gifts that can be used to serve one’s neighbors.

“If He has given you money, He has not given it only for yourself, but so that through what you have, you may show love,” Patriarch Porfirije said.

He identified pride, vanity, self-centeredness and excessive reliance on one’s own strength as the main obstacles to such a life. The meaning of Christian spiritual struggle, he emphasized, is “not to place obstacles in the way of God’s love,” allowing that love to transform a person.

The patriarch also spoke about forgiveness and repentance. People may find it difficult to acknowledge their mistakes, forgive others or return to God after a fall, he said. Yet faith and divine love make these things possible.

“What is impossible for us is possible for God,” Patriarch Porfirije concluded.