Author: Kara Martin

Kara Martin is Project Leader with Seed, lecturer with Mary Andrews College, author of Workship: how to use your work to worship God. She was formerly Associate Dean of the Marketplace Institute at Ridley College in Melbourne. Kara has worked in media and communications, human resources, business analysis and policy development roles, in a variety of organisations, and as a consultant. She was Director of the School of Christian Studies for three years and has lectured with the Brisbane School of Theology, Macquarie Christian Studies Institute and Wesley Institute. Kara has a particular passion for integrating our Christian faith and work, as well as helping churches connect with the workers in their congregations.

False Stories of Work: It’s All about Me

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part six of a series. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be…

False Stories of Work: It’s Just about Money

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part five of a series. [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together….For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the…

False Stories of Work: It’s a Curse

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part four of a series. To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’“Cursed is the ground because of you;    through painful toil you will eat food from it    all the days of your life.It will produce thorns…

False Stories of Work: What’s Faith Got to Do with It?

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part three of a series. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground…The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and…

False Stories of Work: My Source of Meaning

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part two of a series. So God created mankind in his own image,    in the image of God he created them;    male and female he created them.God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in…

False Stories of Work: Focus on Leisure

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part one of a series. Over the next seven devotions, I want to deal with some false stories about work we might hear about, or even unconsciously absorb; and the better story for work that we read in the Bible or is commended through the Gospel. Then God said, “Let us make mankind…

Hurt People Hurt People; Christians Must Break the Cycle

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine…

What’s on Your Mind?

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was…

God Deals with Our Idols

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to…

Permission NOT to Do Excellent Work

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Isaiah 29:13–14: The Lord says:“These people come near to me with their mouth    and honour me with their lips,    but their hearts are far from me.Their worship of me    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.Therefore once more I will astound these people    with wonder upon wonder;the wisdom of the wise will perish,    the intelligence of the…