About Precious Oil Ministries
In 1988 Gail and I were actively involved in a ministry when God began to stir our hearts about yielding our lives totally to Him. We sensed He was calling us into a deeper walk with Him, into a deeper trust and reliance upon Him– and that He was about to change our direction of ministry completely.
We set aside several weeks for a season of prayer, just to seek the Lord. And as we drew near to Him during that time, He began to place on us His burden for a mission field that has been almost completely overlooked: the comatose.
Precious Oil Ministries. was born from that burden. Gail and I believe the Lord has called us to be His extended hands of love to these severely afflicted people- to share with them the life-giving salvation and the love and comfort we have experienced through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Since that initial season of prayer, God has sovereignly opened doors of ministry in head-trauma hospitals throughout the northeastern and mid west U.S. Those to whom we minister are people who once led active lives – but now are crippled by severe (and often critical) head injuries. When even the most advanced medical technology fails them, it’s easy to lose hope.
But the good news is that God never gives up hope. Although the world may have forgotten these broken, helpless people, the Lord never has. Jesus Christ offers the hope of abundant life, even to the most “hopeless.” And although these people’s brains have been damaged severely, their hearts and spirits are very much alive– and needful of Jesus.
He's Getting Through
It’s a tragic fact that some patients who are in deep. “Low level” comas never will be reached by doctors or by technology – nor even by a minister or by family. Only God can reach them. And His Word says He desires that all creation hear the life-giving message of His Son.
The Bible also says He is faithful to make a way for all to hear! And time after time in these hospitals, the Lord has shown us that, in spite of human and medical limitations, He is not hindered in His ability to reach hearts.
Gail and I Pray for each person to receive physical healing, as the Lord directs. But God has made it clear to us that His desire is to touch the innermost being. We pray that as we worship God in song, in prayer and in sharing His Word, by faith these people will hear – and will receive Jesus into their hearts, to be cleansed from all sin and to know His unfailing love for them.
The Lord has been continually faithful in this ministry. We know, through various indications, that some of these patients believe when we tell them about Jesus, and they come into the joy of a living relationship with God.
Others are visibly delivered from the bondage's of sin. And some respond on various ways to our praise and worship, when other stimuli haven’t worked.
We’ll never know the extent to which the Lord reaches many of these people. Yet in each case, we know that somehow God is getting through! And with each experience we see more evidence of the beautiful reality of His Word: “He delivers the afflicted in their affliction, and opens their ears in time of oppression” (Job 36:15).
Seeking His Presence Through Worship and Praise
The psalmist says that “God inhabits the praises of His people and that “in Thy presence is fullness of joy.” As we offer up songs of worship and praise to the Lord, He – through the work of His Spirit- ministers to all who open their hearts to Him. Our mission is to encourage the hearts of these shattered people that there is hope through Jesus- and to see the peace of God rule in their hearts as we admonish them “with psalms and hymns and spiritual; song, singing with thankfulness in (our) hearts to God” (Colossians 3:15-17).
God has opened our eyes to a vast mission field - one that is white unto harvest. We pray that through ministering His Word in music, prayer and sharing, we will see the Lord’s desire for these afflicted people fulfilled: “That He would grant (them) according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16).