Some labeled Jerry Falwell an American version of the Ayatollah Khomeni. People for the American Way, a group organized to counter the Moral Majority, launched a slick media campaign attaching the Nazi slur to the religious right.

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning so glorious -- all my achievements meant nothing in God's economy. "No, the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure -- that I was an ex-convict. My greatest humiliation -- being sent to prison -- was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life; He chose the one thing in which I could not glory for His glory.

We should always pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should always act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.

God is dead not because He doesn't exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He doesn't.

God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience.

Wilberforce and the band of abolitionists knew that a private faith that did not act in the face of oppression was no faith at all.

Who speaks for God? He does quite nicely for Himself. Through His holy and infallible Word - and the quiet obedience of His servants.