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
Stop Chasing Blessings and Start Walking with God
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We often think of God as a judge waiting for us to mess up, but the New Testament tells a different story. In today’s episode, Austin Gardner walks through the beautiful "benedictions" of the New Testament to reveal the heart of a Father who desires good for His children.
Austin shares personally about finding supernatural peace during his battle with cancer and how you can find that same "soldier-like" guard over your heart today. If your life feels like it’s "stinking" right now, this message of hope, resurrection, and final grace is for you.
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Christian Mentorship, Peace of God, Biblical Hope, New Testament Study, Overcoming Hardship, Austin Gardner, Grace vs Performance, Spiritual Growth, Daily Devotional.
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Blessing Is Still God’s Desire
Austin GardnerIt's exciting to see how God is blessing his people. So, since yesterday we went over numbers and we were over in an Old Testament passage, I thought today I would take you to some New Testament passages so you'd know that the God of the Old Testament who desired that his blessings be on his people is still the God of the New Testament. I know it's foreign to us in our churches. We don't do a whole lot of blessing people. It's not something that we regularly practice, at least in the churches that I have pastored and been a part of and churches I grew up in, I don't remember that very much. Except the one church as a kid. But God desires to bless his people. We know God forgives, and we realize that God actively desires good for us, but we don't really look at it and think about God desiring to bless his people with peace, grace, hope, and spiritual life. But the New Testament, the letters regularly end with blessings because blessing reflects what's on God's heart toward his people. So here's a verse, a key blessing verse. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. 2 Corinthians 13, 14. Jesus gives grace, the Father gives love, the Holy Spirit gives communion or fellowship. God's nature is to pour out blessing through relationships. I love that. He ends the book of 2 Corinthians with this blessing. Then in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 7, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. God is a blessing, God. And now he's blessing us with peace. He doesn't want to remove us, our problems necessarily, but he guards our hearts with supernatural peace. The word is keep, to guard, like a soldier protecting a city. So God's peace protects your mind, protects your heart, and it's beyond your understanding. It's not the absence of trouble, it's the presence of God in the middle of our trouble. We experience that with all that's going on. And if you watch the series with Robert and Kelly, they've got God's peace. And I have cantra. God gives peace because he's with us in the middle of our trouble. That's two verses. Come number three. The blessing is the Lord's presence. In 2 Thessalonians 3.16, he said, Now the Lord of peace himself give you the peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all. Now the Lord of peace. I don't know if we think of him as the Lord of peace. Can we be honest? We we kind of think of him as a judge and a referee and maybe not too pleased with us, but he's the Lord of peace. He's asked him to give us peace. The Lord is the God Himself is the Lord of peace, and he gives us peace always, by all means. He doesn't ration peace, he actively provides it in every situation. The greatest blessing is not circumstances changing, but knowing that the Lord is with us and the Lord is blessing us. And the Lord being with us is a tremendous truth. You remember those Old Testament promises we looked at yesterday, just keep going through them. In Romans chapter 15 and verse 13, he says, Now the Lord, now the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Pay attention to the flow. God fills you with joy and peace, so you overflow with hope. That's not optimism. It's confidence that God is working even when we cannot see it. And Paul says it happens through the power of the Holy Spirit. His blessing again, blessing. You get that. Blessings. 1 Peter 1:3, another one. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He has blessed us with the new birth and living hope. Abundant mercy, new life, living hope. Jesus rose from the dead, and we don't serve a dead religion. There is living hope. God's blessings aren't temporary. They're not emotional boosts, they're eternal realities grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here comes another one. Revelation 22, 21. See, the whole Bible closes with blessings. I mean, we start out with blessings and we go through blessings all through the Bible. In Revelation chapter 22 and verse 21, the Bible says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. After prophecies and warnings and judgment and visions of eternity, the final word, grace. Grace. God giving us what we do not deserve. God blessing us with Jesus Christ, not because of our performance. The final message of the Bible is not fear, it is grace through Jesus Christ. So I just want you to get a hold of the fact that God wants to bless you. We've looked at God blessing us. He gives us peace, presence, hope, new life, and grace. We've looked at that in every one of those verses today. God is not reluctant to bless his people. I like to say God bless you. I don't know that people understand what that means. But God bless you. You do, because you're listening to me talk about it. Scripture repeatedly talks about our God as a God who feels, gives, keeps, and pours out blessings. The Christian life's not about chasing blessings, it's about walking with a God who blesses. I just want you to know that as a pastor, I want to be much more blessing of the people. I think there's a lot of fussing, but not a lot of blessing. I think there's a lot of almost an angry God is portrayed in our pulpits, and that's not who he is. That's not what he wants. That's not how he acts. I just want you to get a hold of the fact that God loves you today. And I know you're going through trouble. I know you're alone. I know that your wife left you, or your husband left you, or your kids left you. I know that you don't know where to turn, you don't know what to do. I know life stinks. But if you'll get a hold of how much God loves you and he's blessing you, and look for his peace in the middle of all the chaos and trust God to do a work. He is doing a work in your life. Don't forget it. Keep looking to him. Thank y'all for listening. God bless you, and I will talk to you about his blessings tomorrow.
