Myles Munroe's Ominous Quote on Dying Young

Dr. Myles Munroe, the religious leader who died in a plane in the Bahamas today, once preached that "the value of life is not in its duration, but in its donation."

Munroe, 60, died along with his wife, Ruth, and seven other people when the private Lear Jet taking them to a Global Leadership Forum that Munroe had arranged crashed as it neared the Grand Bahama International Airport Sunday night. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

The Bahamian pastor founded the Bahamas Faith Ministries International Fellowship and had created a worldwide following with his charismatic preaching and he appeared to have been anticipating his own death in a 2003 sermon.

"The value of life is not in its duration, but in its donation. You are not important because of how long you live, you are important because of how effective you live. And most people are concerned about growing old rather than being effective," Munroe said.

"The people who have impacted the world didn't live long. Martin Luther King. John F. Kennedy. These people who impact the world were not old people, but they lived so effectively that we cannot erase them from history," he said.

Munroe frequently exhorted his congregation to live a life of purpose.

"You weren't born just to live a life and to die, you were born to accomplish something specifically," he said in that 2003 sermon. "Matter of fact, success is making it to the end of your purpose, that is success. ... Success is not just existing, success is making it to the end of why you were born."

In a different sermon, Munroe hammered home the importance of a life's work.

"The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose," he said.

Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie called Munroe "indisputably one of the most globally recognizable religious figures our nation has ever produced," and said he was a man "who never hesitated to speak truth to power."