Walking in the Kingdom: Lessons from Todd White

By Sloan Milliken

I want to challenge you to do something that could change your life and the lives of many around you—watch at least ten hours of YouTube videos of a preacher who has a head full of dreadlocks. I know that’s a strange way to start an article, but I’m quite serious about this idea because of how my own life and the lives of those around me have been touched. If you follow through and take what you learn to heart, it will be impossible to leave unchanged.

I was loosely familiar with Todd White, the forementioned preacher with the awesome hair, before setting out to do this issue of KRC. I had seen a documentary he is in called Father of Lights, and based on it I knew he was the perfect person to share with us about a kingdom lifestyle and living like Jesus. I knew nothing else about him, however, and had no idea he had any videos on YouTube. I also had no idea he had been a drug addict and atheist for 22 years until God miraculously delivered him one night in a drug deal gone bad. Ever since, he has wholeheartedly believed and followed Jesus, with signs and wonders following as he loves on people in the power of the Holy Spirit.

My Ten-Hour Challenge

When I approached Todd’s ministry for an interview late this summer, I had hoped they would get back to me and let me talk to him for thirty minutes or so. What I got when they replied was different but much better than expected.

Shortly after getting an email back from the ministry, I spoke over the phone with Todd’s personal assistant about what I wanted to do. He didn’t quite give me the answer I hoped for, however. He told me that due to Todd’s intense travel schedule and his zealous commitment to devote himself to family time when he’s home, he couldn’t promise me an interview. He did, however, suggest that I watch at least ten hours of Todd’s talks and perhaps write something up from them. At least that way, he said, if we couldn’t squeeze the interview in, the message I wanted to get out would still get out. When he suggested that idea, it seemed daunting and like a lot more work than I wanted to do. Still, I reluctantly agreed to it, but mostly just to keep a door open for interviewing Todd!

As I started to watch YouTube videos of Todd’s teachings and testimonies, though, I eventually stopped caring about whether or not we’d actually do an interview. The good news of Jesus and his kingdom began to turn me upside down, and many things that were just head-knowledge to me began to radically impact my heart. For example, I have begun to see what Jesus has done for us like never before. When I would hear people preach about God seeing me as righteous and holy because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I understood it was true. Subconsciously, though, I used to say, “That’s great that God sees me that way, but I really know me.” Now, though, I know that God’s not the one with the vision problem!

I’m seeing fruit from the challenge, too—and not just the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Freedom and faith are rising inside of me, and it’s breaking out on people in power. I’ve seen a couple sentences of encouragement remind a drunkard of his intrinsic worth and move him to the brink of tears. I’ve seen people healed after praying for them, including a teenage girl over text message. (No joke! Texting can have a redemptive purpose!) I have seen people deeply touched by the fact that God cares about them after I risked being wrong to share the word of knowledge I felt God was showing me for them.

Seeing these things is changing me, too. I used to be hungry for God’s power, but now I’m simply starting to want to love people by being a vessel the Father can show his outrageous compassion through. For his love looks like power, and his power looks like love.

The Q&A that follows is based on various clips taken from Todd’s messages and has been approved by his ministry. It is designed to whet our appetites and succinctly communicate Todd’s teaching on living out the gospel of the kingdom everywhere we go. For more on Todd and his ministry, check out his website at www.lifestylechristianity.com and watch the YouTube channels mentioned at the end of the article. Enjoy!

Todd, you live out and preach the gospel of the kingdom. Can you talk a little about the kingdom and why it’s good news?

The kingdom is God’s government that rules and reigns from within. Jesus told us to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). The scripture also says, “The kingdom is not meat or drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). That means the kingdom is in the Holy Spirit, so seeking first the kingdom is seeking first relationship with Holy Spirit, understanding who God is, and that he rules and reigns from inside.

The gospel of the kingdom is not telling someone to say a prayer to go to heaven one day. Often in the church we will preach about getting saved to go to heaven, and people will pray but leave and still live like hell. That’s not okay, and that’s not the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus preached, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” meaning it has come to make its home inside of you and me through the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing, man. When that happens, heaven regains that which was lost and people get possessed by heaven on this earth. That’s the good news, and when we get it, destroying hell becomes our mission and getting to heaven is just our destination.

Jesus didn’t just pay a price to get us to go to heaven. If that was it, when he came into our lives, we would have just disappeared. But he left us here. He left us here so we could have him flowing through us all day long and so we can destroy hell in people’s lives every day.

So what does this look like in practice?

I want to confront something real quick. We are so used to talking about things like “outreach” and “evangelism” as something to do, and if we see the kingdom in that grid, we’ll miss it. People like to call me a street evangelist, as if I just go out on the street and look for people to talk about Jesus to. I’m not a street evangelist. I get so tired of people saying that because I just live kingdom everywhere I go, whether it’s at the mall or walking down the street or while getting something to eat.

It’s about a lifestyle, a kingdom lifestyle where everywhere we go God flows through us. It’s about being love in action. It’s about representing Jesus well. I’m all about changing the reality of what we believe evangelism is. It’s not about a crusade or a meeting or an outreach. Those are awesome, but it’s not what this Christian thing is about. It’s about living kingdom. You don’t have to be an “evangelist” to do it, because the Bible says that if you’re a believer, you should preach to all creation. If you’re a believer, you’re in.

Jesus lives inside of us and wants to get out of us to touch people everywhere we go. And it’s a lifestyle because Jesus didn’t pay a price to leave us selfish. Jesus paid a price to leave us selfless. God so loved the world that he gave, and we’re made in his image. When we lose selfishness, we become love again. Notice, I didn’t say we try to learn to love because the Bible says to “be transformed through the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2). As we are transformed, we become love and live from it all the time. Then we’ll give everywhere we go, not because we have to but because we get to. Love is what it’s all about—it’s becoming who God created you to be. And the power of God flows through love.

That’s good, Todd. Why not share a testimony to help flesh some of this out for us?

A little while ago I was doing some meetings in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’d only slept for a couple hours the night before, and after the morning meeting I decided to go get something healthy to eat. I went to this health food store, and as I was shopping, I told people about Jesus. It was a great place to touch people.

I ended up leaving there and was going to drive back to the hotel to take a nap. On my way back, I was driving and thought in my heart, “I really want to go to Guitar Center.” I like playing my guitar and worshipping Jesus, but I didn’t need anything from that store. My heart was just telling me to go, so I decided to go. When I got there I was thinking, “Man, maybe I can just go in here and jam on a guitar and love Jesus.” I wasn’t looking for “ministry.” I was just hanging out, living kingdom, and walking with Holy Spirit.

While I was in the store, there was a young guy with earrings and tattoos jamming hard, playing metal on the electric guitar. I said, “Dude! How long have you been playing guitar?” He said he’d played for a long time. I said, “Have you ever heard of a band called so-and-so,” and I shared with him a Christian hard-core band I’m friends with and had on my phone. We listened to it, and he said, “What do you do, man?” I told him, “I love people for a living.” He thought that was weird, so I told him I preach the gospel but maybe not like he’s seen it.

He goes, “You know, man, you’re pretty cool. I get this vibe from you.” And I said, “I get that same vibe from you. You’re looking for love, man. You’re looking for someone to love you, but I’ve found the one that loves me.” He thought that was cool, and he said, “Hey, do you have five minutes? Do you think we can talk?”

We went into the keyboard room, and as Jessie (that was his name) was playing the keys he started telling me about how his dad had committed suicide about ten years ago and how he was dealing with a drug addiction and some other stuff. I said, “Dude, can I tell you something?” and I told him my testimony. When I was done, I said to him, “You’ve got a problem in your back, on the right side of your back, on your hip.” I had a word of knowledge. And he looks at me and says, “Yeah, man, that’s weird.” And I told him that he had a problem with his right ankle, too, right on the top of it.

He did, and I said, “God’s showing me that stuff. The love that I’ve encountered—God, who is love—lives in me. Can I pray for your back?” I prayed for him, and the presence of God fell on that kid right there in Guitar Center.

Wait, so God shows you that stuff in his body, you pray for him, and God tangibly falls on him—in the middle of the music store—just because you went to Guitar Center for no reason other than you felt it in your heart.

Yeah. It’s living the kingdom, man. Stuff like this happens every day, everywhere I go. Let me finish the story. It gets better.

So Jessie was freaking out because he could feel God on him but didn’t know what it was. I told him it was God, and he said, “Man, this is nuts. I wish my girlfriend was here.” He immediately called his girlfriend, telling her he had a friend he wanted her to meet. His girlfriend and his mom were shopping next door, and while we were walking over there, I felt like God gave me a word that his girlfriend got migraines. I asked Jessie if she did, and he goes, “No way. She has one right now.” I told him that Jesus was going to heal her, and he said, “This is freaky man. This is freaky.”

We went into the store, and I met his girlfriend, mom, and daughter. I talked with them and shared the gospel. His girlfriend was a little freaked out by me, but I prayed for her, and God healed her headache. We talked a little more, and then they were ready to get back to shopping. To bless them, I asked if I could buy the clothes they were going to buy. They protested, but I told them I really wanted to, and to get more stuff than they were planning to, no strings attached.

In the world, there’s strings attached when people do something. With Jesus, though, there are no strings attached because he loves us—he is love. There are no strings attached to love, but when we see what love is, we want it. We want to become a part of that.

I ended up buying their stuff for them. The cashier, who wasn’t living a godly lifestyle, got overwhelmed by what was happening and the reality of the gospel. After I talked with him a bit, we went out to the parking lot. At this point, Jessie could hardly take it anymore. He was shaking as he was smoking a cigarette because he was getting possessed by the love of God.

A little afraid, he ended up running back into Guitar Center. After he left, his mom told me, “You don’t understand. My son hasn’t really talked to any men since my husband died. It really hit my kids hard.” Curious, I asked her, “Why does he come here to play? Doesn’t he play at home?” and she told me about how Jessie had to sell his guitar to bail himself out of jail. My heart broke, and I went into the store to buy him a guitar just because Jesus loves him so much. I wasn’t giving to get or anything like that. I wanted to because I have become love, and God’s love is intentional, aggressive, profuse blessing.

Wow. What happened when you went in the store?

When I went in, he was playing the drums, and I asked him to come with me for a second. On the way to the guitars, I asked him how his back was. He said, “Dude, this is crazy. I’m so happy right now, and I haven’t been happy in such a long time.” I told him, “This isn’t happy just because you feel good. This is happy because God is good, man. You’re encountering his goodness.” He replied, “Yeah, this is nuts, dude.”

I started asking him about the guitar he pawned off, and then I told him that I wanted to buy him a guitar. He backed up, waving his hands, saying, “No, dude, you’re serious, man? No way, you’re not serious, are you? Dude, you’re going to make me cry.” He was flipping out as he showed me what type of guitar he used to have. As he was looking at them, I was looking over the whole rack of guitars, and this one kept catching my eye. I pointed at it and said, “Dude, what about this one?” It was his favorite guitar in the whole store! I took it off the rack and handed it to him, and his girlfriend, who had come in with me, didn’t know how to handle it and walked away.

We got a case for Jessie’s new guitar and went to the register. The guy at the front knew him by name, and Jessie said, “Dude, I’m finally going to leave here with something instead of coming here three or four times a week and playing all your stuff.” The cashier acted happy for him, but Jessie said, “You don’t understand, man. You have no idea. I just met this guy today. He prayed for me, and my back got healed. He prayed for my girlfriend’s headache, and her head got healed. My ankle got healed. He helped get clothes for my family, and now God told him to get me a guitar...God’s buying me this guitar, man!”

Surprised, the guy at the register asked me what I do. I told him travel and preach the gospel and love people for a living. He said, “No, this isn’t just preaching it. This is doing the gospel. You’re doing the gospel, man. Can I shake your hand? This is what Jesus would do. I am so blessed by this.”

Jessie couldn’t stop hugging me, and once we got out of the store, his mom told me that he hadn’t hugged anyone except his girlfriend and his baby for the last ten years. Then she looked at me and said, “My son is back.” Out in the parking lot, I loved on them some more, hugging them and praying and prophesying and preaching the gospel. It was such an amazing encounter. I didn’t corner them into praying my prayer. I didn’t tell them to go to this meeting or that church. I just loved them, and God radically set the whole family free.
That’s amazing. And that’s just one story. You really live this way every day, don’t you?

Yeah. That story with Jessie is just one story from one day. I get to see this sort of thing every day of my life. It may be in a grocery store or in a drug store or on a plane—it doesn’t matter. People cannot escape the love of God.

If we would be possessed by what Jesus said to be possessed by, if we wouldn’t incorporate him into our lives, but surrender them to him, if we wouldn’t just try to get to heaven but let Jesus get out of us so we can destroy hell on our way there, God will totally touch people through us. Time is short, and life is short. We’re here to leave a legacy. Let’s get possessed by Jesus and drop all the other stuff so we can love people for a living, in Jesus’ name.

You can find Todd’s YouTube channel, which contains full-length sermons from churches and conferences Todd’s spoken at, here: www.youtube.com/user/ToddWhiteChannel

For a channel with clips of testimonies from Todd’s everyday life, google “Lessons in Kingdom Lifestyle: Todd White.” The first link that comes up should be a YouTube channel with thirty video clips.