Add to your faith and pray for others

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NIV)

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We should, as we have opportunity, exhort those we pray for, and excite them to the use of all proper means to obtain what we desire God to bestow upon them; and those who will make any progress in religion must be very diligent and industrious in their endeavours. Without giving all diligence, there is no gaining any ground in the work of holiness; those who are slothful in the business of religion will make nothing of it; we must strive if we will enter in at the strait gate. [Matthew Henry Commentary]

Global missions expert Paul Borthwick was invited to speak at a local church known for its hospitality to international students and its vision to adopt unreached people groups, including the Miao people from southern China. Borthwick tells what happened when he visited the church:

All over the church there were posters inviting people to "Pray for the Miao." The posters had statistics about the people group, population information, how many known Christians there are in the area, where the Miao are located and which missionaries are working with these people. Every member of the church was committed to pray for the Miao people.

As I was standing outside the banquet hall, a young man approached me and asked, "Excuse me, sir, are you from this church?" "No, I'm not from this church," I said. "This is my first time here."

"Me too," he replied. "This is my first time in any church. I am from the People's Republic of China. I heard there was food, so I came." I welcomed him to the United States and to the church, and he continued, "I need to ask another question. What is this sign?" He pointed to one of the signs that read, "Pray for the Miao."

I tried my best to explain: "Well, these people are followers of Jesus and they're trying to help other people know about the love of Jesus," I began. "So they've invited their church to pray for this ethnic minority group from south China."

"It is amazing!" he said.

"What is amazing?" I replied, a little confused.

"I am Miao!" he said earnestly. "These are my people."

"Well, this church has been praying for you," I answered. I introduced him to church leaders as the young man they had been praying for. God is at work.

[Paul Borthwick, Western Christians in Global Mission (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 42-43]