Name: Developing Your Gifts and Talents
Author: Apostle Charles Mutuku

About the book

Part of your wealth is hidden in your gifting and your talent, the Apostle writes at the door of this book: not in prayer alone, not in fasting alone, not in connections, but in the tools God placed inside you before you were born. He has watched gifted people live small lives because they looked outside, at what others were doing, instead of asking the simple question: what has God given me?

The book separates gift from talent, anointing and calling, opens the four lists of gifts Scripture actually names, gives five tests for discovering what you carry, shows how a gift is built and what it cost him to learn his own trade, what is lost when a gift is buried, what excellence looks like when a gift is deployed, and how to steward what you were given for a lifetime and hand it on.

Part of your wealth is hidden in your gifting and your talent.

Written for

Believers who have never asked what God has given them
Parents raising a child along his own bent
Anyone with an undeveloped ability and a job that suffocates it

The book, laid out like a course

4 parts and 13 chapters. Open a part to see what each chapter helps you understand.

By the end, you will

What a gift is, what a talent is, and why the difference decides what kind of work you owe
How gift, talent, anointing and calling are four different things, and what each one costs
What gifts the Scriptures actually name, in all four of their lists
How to discover what you are carrying, with five tests rather than one
What is truly lost when you bury what you were given
How to raise a child along his own bent, and what to do if nobody did that for you
How to steward what you were given for a lifetime, and how to hand it on

Full outline

Part1

What You Carry

What a gift and a talent are, what Scripture names, and how to find what you carry.

01What Is a Gift and What Is a Talent?The carpenter and his toolbag: what a gift is, what a talent is, and why the difference matters.
02Four Things, Not One: Gift, Talent, Anointing and CallingGift, talent, anointing and calling: four words the church uses as one, and what each costs.
03The Gifts Scripture NamesThe lists we quote and never open: the gifts Scripture actually names.
04How to Discover What You CarryFive tests for discovering what you are carrying, because you cannot develop what you have not found.

Part2

What It Will Cost You

Gifts as the tools of your assignment, the investment they require, and the cost of silence.

05Gifts and Talents as Tools for Your PurposeYour gift is not your calling: gifts as the tools of your assignment, never a map.
06The Investment Required: Understanding the DifferenceTwo kinds of labour: the work that goes into the man and the work that goes into the skill.
07When You Ignore Your Gift: The Cost of SilenceThe parable written on this book's exact subject, and what is truly lost when a gift is buried.

Part3

When the Gift Goes Out

The distinct edge, examples of excellence, and the counterfeit.

08Your Gift Is Your Distinct EdgeWhy the chapter was renamed from competitive to distinct: a developed gift takes you out of the crowd.
09Examples of Excellence: When Gifts Are DeployedWhat Scripture puts on display when a gift is fully deployed: examples of excellence.
10The Counterfeit: When a Gift Is MisusedIrrevocable cuts in two directions: what a gift does when the character behind it fails.

Part4

Keeping It for a Lifetime

Why we fail to develop what we carry, childhood, and stewardship for a lifetime.

11Why We Fail to Develop Our GiftsFear first, then its coats: why so many never develop what they carry.
12Developing Your Gift From ChildhoodThe chapter for every parent: raising a child along his own bent, and what to do if nobody did that for you.
13Stewarding the Gift for a LifetimeGifted is not the same as successful: stewarding what you were given for a lifetime and handing it on.