Followed By Mercy
The Followed By Mercy Podcast
Real Grace, Honest Hope
You might notice a new name and a fresh look, but the heart behind this podcast is the same. After years as the World Evangelism Podcast, I sensed God leading me to a deeper, more personal path centered on His relentless mercy and the kind of honest hope that can reach into every hurting place. That’s why this show is now called Followed By Mercy Podcast. The format may shift, and the tone may be a bit more personal, but my mission hasn’t changed: I still believe the world desperately needs to hear the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. You are welcome here if you’ve been with me from the beginning or just found us now.
What if God’s love is more personal, stubborn, and relentless than you ever imagined?
Welcome to The Followed By Mercy Podcast, where we get honest about pain, hope, and the kind of grace that finds you right where you are, five days a week. This isn’t about religious performance or church routines. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt worn out, unseen, or unsure if they belong in the story of God’s love. Every conversation is rooted in this reality: God loves you right now, just as you are, and He isn’t giving up on you.
Here’s what you’ll find in every episode:
Experience God’s Relentless Love
Every show starts by reminding you that the Shepherd knows your name, cares about your story, and isn’t offended by your failures or questions. This is personal—it’s about God’s unwavering affection for you.
Find Your Place in His Heart
Once you grasp how fiercely you’re loved, sharing that love with others doesn’t feel forced. It becomes the most natural thing in the world. Real grace overflows.
Prayer That Changes You
We pray together—not just for the world “out there,” but for the battles and hopes you’re carrying right now. These prayers are honest, rooted in Scripture, and meant for hearts that need a gentle touch from the Shepherd.
Discover Your Unique Role
Whether you’re called to go, give, serve, or show kindness in your corner of the world, God’s mercy meets you where you are. You’re not just a bystander. You are His beloved, invited into the story He’s writing.
When life knocks the wind out of you, this is a place to catch your breath. You’ll hear the encouragement that meets you on your hardest days, and your honest questions will be welcomed. No pretending, no heavy-handed advice—just the reminder that your Shepherd is right there with you, walking every step with you, even when you feel like giving up.
Why does this matter? Because some days, it feels like nobody sees you or cares what you’re going through. But the truth is, you have a Shepherd who never takes His eyes off you, lets you slip through the cracks, and never gives up on you. That kind of love can put you back on your feet, and it might be the hope someone else is waiting to see in you, too.
If you’re longing for more than just religious talk—if you want to know you’re not alone and that God’s mercy is following you all the way home, you’re in the right place. Whether you listen in the car, on a walk, or in a quiet moment, let every episode remind you: God’s mercy is after you right now, ready to bring real grace and honest hope.
Subscribe today and join a community to discover what happens when loved people become loving people. The journey’s just beginning, and there’s a place for you here.
Followed By Mercy
The Spiritual Bank Account: Discovering Your Heavenly Blessings
Do you ever feel like you have to work harder, pray longer, or be better before God will finally accept you? The letter to the Ephesians gives us a completely different picture. Paul tells us that God has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We are not trying to earn His favor. We already have it.
Ephesians is not written as a list of corrections but as a reminder of who we are. Paul calls believers “saints” and “faithful in Christ,” not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Our identity rests in Christ, not in our performance or failures.
God has already placed His riches in our account, yet so many of us live as if we are spiritually bankrupt. The truth is, we are not beggars but heirs, not empty but full. What God has secured in heaven cannot be undone by anything on earth.
This episode is about learning to live from the security we already have in Christ. When we take our eyes off the waves and fix them on Jesus, everything changes.
Share this with someone who needs a reminder that, in Christ, they are deeply loved, fully accepted, and richly blessed.
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Well, I'm excited to be back with you here on Followed by Mercy podcast.
Austin Gardner:Today is the 145th episode of the podcast since we started. As you know, it began as a World Evangelism podcast and then we swapped over to Followed by Mercy. We've been through lots of different subjects in evangelism and Psalm 23, and now we're in the book of Ephesians, and so this is actually like the third episode of Ephesians so season three and number three, if I'm not mistaken, and I am very excited about what I want you to see, about what God's doing. I think it'll change your life, just like it has mine. Now, when we're looking at Ephesians and we get the whole picture of Ephesians, we find out that it is a whole lot more about instruction than correction. That makes it different than some of the other books that are heavy on correction. This is a book where chapters one through three are mainly doctrine it talks about what God has done for us in Christ and in chapters four through six are practice how to live in that truth. But here's what's really wild and crazy 90 to 95% of the book of Ephesians is instruction and only 5 to 10% is correction. That's a wild one, and even the examples of correction are this I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not be. Once named among you, has become saints. So the facts are, this book is going to let you know who you are in Christ. Let you know who you are in Christ, and it's going to change your life. He's not rebuking us as he begins this book, as he writes the letter to the Ephesian church, but he's lifting our eyes to see God's blessings. And so we've done that. We've already been through a couple of verses.
Austin Gardner:The Bible says in Ephesians 1, 1, paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God, our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's your first two verses, two verses. So, by the will of God, paul is an apostle. His authority is that God called him and, by the way, that's exactly how we got saved. It was God's initiative that called Paul and it was God's initiative that brought about our salvation. And then you know we've already seen this, but I remind you that he's writing to the saints and the faithful in Christ. That's our identity. That is who he's writing to.
Austin Gardner:It's defined not by what you do, but by what God calls you. So he calls us saints and faithful in Christ, and then he says grace and peace. We've seen that Again, those are God's gifts to us. They're not what we achieve or what we come through with. I want you to think of grace as the Father opening his arms and peace as we rest in those arms. You see arms. You see grace from God, peace from God.
Austin Gardner:Romans 5.1 says therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord. You know, I know, that some of you fall into the trap of thinking that God is angry with you and God is somebody that you've got to try to appease and you've got to try to work your way up to him. But that's not who he is at all. He is the one who calls you saint and calls you faithful if you're saved, and he's the one that sends grace. There's always God coming first. And for you as a believer, and you think I've lost it, I've burned it, I've ruined it. In Romans 5.20, he said when sin abounded, grace did much more about it. Do you live trying to prove yourself or feel like you're trying to prove yourself, feel like you have to prove yourself to get God to like you to be accepted, for him to be pleased, or do you rest in what God has given you? Do you accept it as a fact that you're a saint and faithful in Christ because he called you that, or do you feel like it's on you to work up to it? Now that brings us to verse three, and that's where we want to talk today.
Austin Gardner:The Bible says blessed be God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is blessed and blessings hath blessed. So the worship flows. Before explanation See, paul is praising. Paul is worshiping. It's like he's opening up a treasure vault and gasping. Before they describe it. He sees it and is blowing his mind.
Austin Gardner:Psalm 103 says bless the Lord O my soul and all that's within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget not his benefits. When was the last time you paused to bless God before asking him for something? When's the last time you just said thank you and blessed him? You see, he is the source of all our blessings. It says our blessings. It says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. You see, he is already blessed. I want you to pay attention, it's past tense he hath blessed. It's an accomplished reality. We have already been blessed. And it's not some blessings, it's all spiritual blessings. There are spiritual blessings like we've been given forgiveness and adoption and redemption, and the sealing of the spirit and eternal inheritance. He has poured out this grand scope of blessings on us.
Austin Gardner:The Bible says in 2 Peter 1, 3, according as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain, he's given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, also freely give us all things? So do you understand? It's like he opened a bank account and he gave it to us and we discover it is already full, not because we earned it, but because he deposited his riches for us in our bank account. We are spiritual millionaires, but most of the time we still live like we are bankrupt beggars. There's no call for that.
Austin Gardner:That's what Ephesians, chapter one is making clear to us. You know, blessed be the Father of our Lord and Savior, blessed be the Father of God and the Father of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ, in the unseen realm. Now, that idea of heavenly places is found five times here in Ephesians. We see Christ is seated in the heavenlies. We are seated with him in the heavenlies and the battles are fought in the heavenlies. So we are covered up here with the Lord's blessing us in heaven, and what's been blessed in heaven is not at risk on earth.
Austin Gardner:The Bible says I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish and neither shall any man. Nobody will ever pluck them out of my hands. See, earthly security systems may fail us, the alarms may not work, the locks may be broken, the cameras may go offline, but heaven's security cannot be breached. So here's the question when are you looking for your security? What is it that you're focusing on? Is it things on earth? What is it that you're focusing on?
Austin Gardner:You see, our blessings are in Christ. We've discussed that already, but everything is in our union with him. We were once in Adam, we were once in the flesh, we're now in the spirit, we're now in Christ, and in Christ all the blessings of God flow through him to us. It's not about religion, it's about participating in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. You're a new creature. In Christ, old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet. Not I, but Christ lives in me. So it's like us being on an airplane.
Austin Gardner:I like to give this illustration we're in an airplane and we're flying, but you don't fly by your power. You rise because you're in the airplane. So in Christ, we rise because we're in him. So how have you been defining yourself? By your failures, by your mistakes, by your sins, by the mess ups, or by the fact that you are in Christ? You are in Christ.
Austin Gardner:So in Christ we have several anchors. Here there's security and our salvation is finished and secure. You see, he that begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He started it, he saved us and he'll carry you through. You've messed up. Since you've been saved, you've been wondering if everything's still okay. But he that started it will finish it. You've messed up. Since you've been saved, you've been wondering if everything's still okay. But he that started it will finish it. You are chosen, loved and accepted. That's what we've read in Ephesians 1. And in 1 John 3, he said Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God. Our only response that makes any sense is for us to worship God and thank him, see in everything, give thanks. That's the will of God in Christ Jesus for us. So I want you to know that we are believers and we are in Christ, already seated in the heavenlies. Our battles are in Christ and the battles are in Christ, already seated in the heavenlies. Our battles are in Christ and the battles are in heaven. So they're already taken care of. The blessings are in heaven. They've already been given to us. You and I live in security. We live blessed, we live thankful. Now I know things may not be going that way for you and I know you may look around and see a different reality where you live. But that's because you're looking at here and not there. You're looking at yourself and not at Christ. You're looking at the waves and you're going to sink. Apostle Peter, you're going to mess up because you've got your eyes in the wrong place. So today I challenge you to come back to Ephesians 1, take your Bible, read the verses on your own, do it without me and make sure that I'm telling you the truth. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God, our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. There's so much more. You realize we've only dug into the book of Ephesians, into three verses, and look at how sweet and wonderful it is. And so I want you to rest in your identity, rest in what Jesus called you and accept the goodness of God to you. Thanks so much for listening. I honestly want to be a blessing. It's my heart's desire to magnify the God who did all this to us. I'm trying to know him better and share him with you. So if this is a blessing to you, help me spread the word, help me share it with somebody else. God bless you and thank you very much.
