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
Clean Slate: How God Actually Sees You
Fully Forgiven: The Freedom of God’s Grace
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by guilt, wondering if God can truly forgive you? That voice of condemnation isn’t from God. It comes from a misunderstanding of what forgiveness in Christ truly means.
In this episode of Followed by Mercy, we continue in Ephesians 1:7 and discover that forgiveness isn’t God tolerating us. It’s God declaring us clean and whole. Forgiveness isn’t stingy or reluctant. It flows out of the riches of His grace. While redemption speaks of freedom from slavery, forgiveness goes even further by obliterating guilt. The sins you keep replaying in your mind have no record in heaven.
We’ll confront the lie of performance-based religion, which says God forgave you once, but now it’s up to you to stay clean. Instead, you’ll hear the truth: your forgiveness isn’t based on your feelings or your performance. It’s based on Christ’s finished work on the cross.
Through real stories and timeless wisdom, including the struggles of Adoniram Judson and the courage of Corrie Ten Boom, you’ll be reminded that forgiven people become forgivers and that the freedom you long for is already yours in Jesus.
Join us for this life-giving conversation and lay down the burden of guilt and shame. You are entirely, completely, and permanently forgiven.
Subscribe to Followed by Mercy for more encouragement as we walk together in the freedom of grace.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Welcome back to, followed by Mercy. I very much enjoyed our last podcast where I got to deal with the subject of redemption, speaking with my son, chris. Today I'm back. I don't know what's going on in your life. Maybe somebody listening is carrying guilt from something you said or did, or you're burdened by shame. You're wondering if God ever could really forgive you. That's what we're going to talk about today forgiveness, not the watered-down kind of that religion or performance-based religion sometimes offers, but the real, full, complete forgiveness that comes through Jesus Christ. Take a breath. This episode is about the freedom that comes when you finally believe the words. You are forgiven.
Austin Gardner:In Ephesians 1.7, the Apostle Paul said the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Now we've gone from redemption to forgiveness, gone from redemption to forgiveness. If redemption speaks of freedom from slavery, forgiveness speaks of the removal of guilt. Forgiveness is a gift that cleanses our conscience, removes our shame and restores us to fellowship with God. Now here's what I want you to get a hold of Forgiveness. Isn't God tolerating you? It's God declaring you clean and whole.
Austin Gardner:Take this verse, take all of Hebrews 10, but take this verse, for by one sin he has perfected forever them that are sanctified, perfected forever. Not until your next mistake, not until you prove yourself worthy forever. Yes, we all sin to come to the glory of God. But you know what he did? He separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west Psalm 103, 12. That's thorough forgiveness, because east and west never meet and you can't look at the east without having the west at your back. Can't look at the west without having the east at your back. When God looks at you, your sins are not in focus, not to be looked at. They're at his back. I want you to hear this.
Austin Gardner:Forgiveness means there's no record in heaven of the sins you keep replaying in your mind. Do you hear that there's no record in heaven? And no, you're not going to face those sins when you get to heaven. They're paid for Performance-based religion, whispers. God wiped you clean at the salvation, but now it's up to you to keep it clean. And that sounds really religious and noble, but it's impossible. Forgiveness doesn't depend on your performance. If it did, no one could have it.
Austin Gardner:Forgiveness isn't something that God feeds us for one sin at a time. He poured out all of his forgiveness at the cross. Jesus bore our sins before we were ever born. Forgiveness that's his gift, not our achievement, not something we did. Forgiveness that's his gift, not our achievement, not something we did. Have you been trying to keep yourself forgiven instead of resting in the fact that Jesus has already forgiven you? It's something he's done.
Austin Gardner:God has richly poured out his riches of grace on us, not a little, not reluctantly, not sometimes all the time. Lavished his riches on us, he has poured it out on us. God doesn't forgive sparingly, he forgives abundantly. He's not the multimillionaire handing the poor boy a dime or throwing the beggar a coin. He is the almighty God giving from the riches that are beyond anything you could ever imagine. Now, that doesn't mean that sometimes you don't get messed up. It doesn't mean that sometimes you don't kind of get lost in your despair. Sometimes you don't got to get lost in your despair.
Austin Gardner:The great missionary Adoniram Judson, the missionary to Burma, his wife and child died and he went into deep despair and he felt condemned. He felt like God had abandoned him. He even wrote God is to me the great unknown. I believe in him, but I find him not. Yet even in that darkness, the truth of forgiveness anchored him. He discovered forgiveness wasn't based on his feelings but on Christ's finished work. And eventually the joy came back.
Austin Gardner:And it's possible that you're like Adnan Jetson, great missionary, and you're unable to sense God's presence, god's nearness, his warmth. But His forgiveness isn't based on how you feel. It is something that we already have. He has lavishly poured out on us, just like he did redemption In Isaiah, chapter 44 and verse 22,. He says I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins returning to me, for I have redeemed you. Your sins aren't covered by tarp waiting to be pulled out again and put there in front of you. They're gone. This is what forgiveness means to you. You don't have to carry your past anymore. You don't have to live in fear of being rejected. You don't have to earn the love. You already have the love.
Austin Gardner:So take a moment what guilt do you still carry? Can you picture God blotting it out like a cloud gone from you? Can you look at it? Can you see that Forgiveness flows in two directions to you and through you? And so it's a statement that I often like to make the forgiven forgive.
Austin Gardner:In Luke 6, 37,. We find in the Bible that the whole idea you and I are forgivers because we have been forgiven. It says judge not, you shall not be judged. Condemn not, you shall not be condemned. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. You see, we are forgivers. We are forgivers. We don't do it as a condition. It's a reflection of who we are. It's a reflex, it's what we do.
Austin Gardner:Corrie Ten Boom we've talked about that. She said that forgiving is not setting the prisoner free. Excuse me, let me reword that. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you. So here's the question who do you need to forgive today? Where are you still holding on to bitterness? Have you really believed that God has totally forgiven you? Not partly, not temporarily, but completely?
Austin Gardner:Forgiveness is God's invitation for you to open those clenched fists and receive His grace. To open those clenched fists and receive His grace. Let's thank God for forgiveness, full and free and final. Thank Him for His blood covering all of our sin. Thank Him for taking away the weight of guilt. Thank Him for making us clean. Thank Him for not making us earn forgiveness. Thank him for not making us earn forgiveness. We are forgiven. Walk in that truth. Today you are free from slavery by redemption and your guilt is gone. God has forgiven you. He's not tolerating you. He's not putting up with you. You are totally completely forgiven Removed. Remember that. Take it home with you. He's not putting up with you. You are totally, completely forgiven Removed. Remember that. Take it home with you. Removed. Either you are forgiven of all your sins or you're not forgiven of any of your sins.
Austin Gardner:Grace does not do things halfway. You don't keep yourself. Forgiven, jesus does. He bore your sins before you were ever born. Forgiveness is his gift, not your achievement, not something you did. That's not what he did. He's not giving it to you little by little. He's blotted it out. He's gotten rid of it Now. I hope you'll take that with you. I hope you'll take that with you. Now listen to me.
Austin Gardner:We are taught by the performance-based religion that we so often follow that when we get to heaven, our sins are going to be brought up before us. But that's not true. He told you I will remember them no more. He's not going to bring them up again. He separated them from your person. They're paid for and they're behind you. And performance-based religion may try to manipulate you and force you into things, but you ought to get a hold of something. You are forgiven. By the good grace of God, you are forgiven.
Austin Gardner:So go back through Ephesians, chapter one. Go back through it. Realize he's talking to the saints, he's talking to the faithful. You have a hard time believing that's who you are. But you're not that because of who you are, you're that because you're in Christ and he has blessed you with all spiritual blessings and he chose you and he chose you so he would make you holy and he would make you without blame and he's predestined you for that day. He's going to put us up and give us our new body and in front of the world and all of creation, time, past and present and future, all together, he's going to say this is my beloved son. He has made us accepted in the beloved, we have been redeemed through his blood and we have the forgiveness of sins.
Austin Gardner:So what in the world? Get a hold of it and today, live in joy. People will remember your sins and you'll remember your sins. But God says I'm not bringing them up, I'm not discussing them, that's not here with me. He's not got the attitude you do. So today, let's live believing God. I'm not discussing them, that's not here with me. He's not got the attitude you do so today. Let's live believing God. Thank you so much for being with me. I look forward to many more podcasts with you. Help me share if this is a blessing to you. God bless you.
