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
Redeemed By Precious Blood
“Bought With Blood That Does Not Rust”
What if something very important about you was determined long before you were born? We open 1 Peter 1 and consider the truth that Christ’s precious blood redeemed us, not silver, gold, or family religion. Precious here means costly, chosen with care, and full of purpose.
To make it real, we talk about farming, bloodlines, and what it means to give up the best lamb. When a farmer offered the first and finest animal, it cost the future of the herd. That is the point. True sacrifice hurts, and the cross was the ultimate costly gift.
From there, we talk about what grace like that does to the heart. When God says, “Be holy,” it is not a command to perform better but to love. The cross determined your worth. Your works cannot buy what Christ paid for. That truth breaks shame and pride and changes how you live each day. Reading the Bible stops being a test. It becomes time with a Father who is kind and patient, who planned your redemption before the world began.
We end by looking at small, quiet shifts in how we think and live. Sin becomes wounding a relationship, not breaking a rule. Money and status lose their grip. And you learn to let your mind rest on one steady thought: blood that does not rust bought you.
If you are weary from trying to prove yourself or afraid you have to earn God’s love, this conversation is for you. Please share this with someone who needs to know.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
I'm excited to hear again, Robert was just going to share with me something the Lord's laid on his heart this morning. And you know, that's what we look for is a chance to spend time with the Lord every day. Maybe this would be a good way for you to start your day just hearing what we've looked at here and what Robert said. Robert, or you take it as to 1 Peter chapter 1, I understand.
Robert Canfield:Yes, sir. Yeah, I was uh there this morning. Some things really stood out. I'll take you there, let you follow with me. We're in 1 Peter chapter 1, and it starts right here. I gotta go back a verse, a couple verses. He tells us in verse 16, he says, For it's written, be ye holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect to purchase judges every man according according to every man's work, pass your time or pass the time of your sojourning here with fear. For as much as ye know, and I I was thinking about that no part, you know what I mean? Well, what's what's no mean? It's a it's for me, it is a having a a knowing when I know something, there there is something that's going through my mind. And what Peter's saying here, think about, know that we are redeemed, we're not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, or or from your vain conversation you received by the tradition of your fathers. There was not there was no teaching that our that our our parents gave us. There was nothing that was handed down to us that that made us redeemed, made us right with God, didn't made us holy. And then he says in verse 19, this is the really thing that really stood out to me. He says, But with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot, what really stood out to me today was this that I'm supposed to think about, I'm supposed to put in my mind, I'm supposed to ponder and chew on and go over in my mind and heart that I have been redeemed by Jesus' blood. And he says it's precious. He says, the Bible says, that it was without spot, without blemish. A lamb without spot, without blemish. But what made really stood uh that stand out to me was is just this past week I was in Ohio and I was uh having breakfast with my brother and uh a good friend of mine that I grew up with. And my brother, he uh he likes to farm. And my my friend, he is a farmer. He's been a generational farmer. I don't know how many generations it goes back, but I know it's at least great-great-grandfather came over to that area and they had that farm there in that area for for for generations. And they were talking about the bloodlines and how to how to make certain breeds for sheep and make certain breeds for for cattle. And I was just kind of intrigued. I'm just sitting here listening. And uh, I know you, brother Gardner, you've you've lived on a farm. Whenever a farmer gets a good calf, gets a good lamb, they often want to keep it. Genetics is a huge thing for them. Like making sure that that its father or the whoever it was or the mother has has has good, I guess, bone structure, has good whatever it is. I don't I mean, I'm not I'm not a farmer. I just I'm sitting here listening to them and they're like, this had this, and this, this was good for for the for the weather, and this one was good for for when when it's cold weather, and this one they use down in Brazil, and they're they were just going back and forth. I'm just sitting here, I'm like, wow, that having a you know certain lambs and and the breeding thing is extremely, extremely important for a farmer. And then I was reading in the Bible and it says that it was a lamb without spot and blemish. And for me, when I started thinking about that, I was like, so back in Leviticus, when they took a lamb and they were sacrificing a lamb and they gave a lamb that was supposed to be without spot and blemish, they couldn't give a deformed lamb. They couldn't give it a huge sacrifice. It was something that that was extremely costly to these people. I mean, it could even be detrimental. I don't say detrimental, but it wasn't, it wasn't optimal for their, for their for their herd. Their sacrifice was something that had to be costly. It had to be important to them when they gave up that land. It wasn't just them, because like in America, I had this concept, I had this idea that, you know, I give my tithe, I give, I give a little bit of money to missions, I I I give the for this, I give for that. And yeah, it's it's kind of what somewhat costly, but it I mean, I can still function. I can still continue on. But as I was thinking about for these people back in Bible times that were to give up a lamb, it was extremely it was extremely costly for them. They they were giving up something that could make their herd great. They were giving up their best, that if you could say that. They were giving up their best. And there's only certain amount of number, there's only certain best that you get every year. And they were supposed to take that. And and Peter, in this, in, in this, this reading today, he said, You know that we weren't redeemed with corruptible things. We weren't redeemed with things that that that that that that will one day perish, but we are redeemed with precious, with the precious blood of Christ. As, or just like a lamb, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. So that to me just made me think about how precious the sacrifice that Jesus gave me. When I think about that, when I think about that, God gave his one and only son, and I feel and I realize that he was perfect. He was, he was God in the flesh, and he was a sacrifice for my sins. Man, that just changes my whole entire life. That changes my perspective on things. When I think about how precious it was, when I think about how just like a farmer would give up the best of their flock, and it could be detrimental to the herd. I don't say detrimental, but it could be, it wasn't optimal, it wasn't the best thing to do for the herd. God much more so gave up something so precious. And when I think about that, I don't know about you, I want to be a whole, I want to live a life that's separated unto him. I want to live for him. I wanna, I wanna to walk around here on earth and think that, man, I'm I'm a stranger, I'm a pilgrim. This isn't it. I'm looking for something so much better. I've been redeemed, I've been purchased with something so precious, something so precious, it's it's the son of God. It's the blood of the son of God. It was his death that purchased me. That just changes my mindset today. That changes my perspective on things. And so that's just something that I that I was reading and I was thinking about today. How when when you give something, if it doesn't mean anything, if there is no sacrifice, it often has little value. If you have a if you have a whole bunch of wealth and you only give just a little bit of portion of it, you look at the in perspective and you're like, that might be a great offering, but proportionally wise, it doesn't really mean anything. And it just it just makes my mind think about through a whole bunch of different stories in the scriptures. And so God gave his one and his only son, and his son, that precious blood, was shed for our sins. And that just changes the way I look out today. Well, I wanted to ask you a question.
Austin Gardner:How before you did all that preaching and teaching, I was going to ask you this. How did we end up in Peter today? From where we were yesterday, it seems like we made a jump.
Speaker:Well, I'm just going through uh there's an app called the the Bible app, and it's through the Bible, like in 200 days or something like that, 270 days or something. And so I finished Philippians, and then it jumped me down to Timothy and Timothy and Titus.
Austin Gardner:Okay, I just was wondering how you moved around because people are listening are going to wonder what you were doing. It doesn't matter, by the way, if you're listening, there is no rule that you should read the Bible from cover to cover, and there's no rule about how you read the Bible. And God doesn't get mad at you if you read Psalms today and and and Revelation tomorrow. That's never the point. I mean, first off, God just loves that you would spend time with him. He is not angry with you because of, I don't know, somewhere along the way, we've built a whole lot of rules into everything, and God doesn't have those rules. And really, that's the point of 1 Peter. You see, in 1 Peter, you're not redeemed by corruptible things or what you do. You're not redeemed by your Bible reading, you're not redeemed by your giving, you're not redeemed by any of that. You're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. And precious means highly valuable. Highly valuable. That's what precious is. It's precious. Precious metals cost a lot more than non-precious metals. And so that's what that word is talking about there. And so you and I are redeemed not with corruptible things. There's, to be bluntly honest, there is nothing you can do to redeem yourself. There's nothing you ever did to redeem yourself. And so to be bluntly honest, there's nothing of value we bring to the table. Now that's a wild thought for you to take home with you. But see, some of this part about you thinking maybe God's angry with you or God is upset with you, or you don't measure up. A lot of that has to do, I'm sorry, but it literally has to do with you thinking you bring something to the table. But you are not redeemed with corruptible things. You're not redeemed with things that are have little value, that are, that are going to perish, that are going to rot, that are going to rust away, that are are going to turn into nothing. And that's silver and gold. That's what we rank way up here. And God's like, yeah, that junk. I use that for pavement down my place. And uh vain conversation, that is referring to your worthless, empty life. And we we've received here here's something important.
Speaker:Yeah. I would say our worthless works, because my life, he says, was bought by his precious blood. That's a that's a that's a powerful thought to think about. We think that sometimes we're worthless, right? Sometimes and I I know what you were saying there, but our worthless works. Our works were worthless.
Austin Gardner:That is a good point. It's not it's not that you are worthless because you are of such value that God so loved the world that he decided that he would give his only begotten son for you. So that that establishes your value.
Speaker:And that that preciousness, it's comes up with the idea of it's priceless. Like the God of heaven chose to buy you back with something that's priceless, his son's blood. As of, just like a lamb that was without spot, without blemish, something that was so precious to people back in the days, people that were in farming communities, even to have like a good herd. Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but I uh that that just that was just in my mind. It was something extremely, extremely priceless. And that's what God thought about me. And that's what he tells me to think on. I wasn't I wasn't purchased by gold or by my works or by some vain conversation or some some law that that my dad and my mom and my ancestors passed down to me. I was purchased, I was redeemed, I was bought back by his precious blood. And when I think on that, man, that that changes everything. I mean, that it should change everything. It should change my mindset. It should change the way I the way I view sin, the way I view, the way I view what I'm doing today, how I get to serve him and give gratitude and thankfulness in my side of my heart and realize that this world, we're just pilgrims, we're strangers, we're passing through, we're we're looking for something different.
Austin Gardner:And what you want to realize is that you have received a way of living and worshiping God that is tradition of men. I think that is what you want to be careful with. You see, it says you received from by the tradition of your fathers, and we kind of learned how to worship God from our fathers, and often that's not really scriptural. And so we tend to think, man, my goal makes a difference. And God's like, no, it it really doesn't. I redeemed you. And and and let me throw one other thing before maybe we start wrapping up for today. But he said here that he did that, he made this plan from before the foundation of the world. You are not an afterthought. That's right. God, before you were ever born, before the world was ever created, God already had a plan that I love people enough that I will send my son to die on a cross. So it is God's plan from the beginning to redeem us. We don't have value in and of ourselves. We only have value as God places value on us. We're his creation. And this brings up a whole nother conversation for another day. But in the Bible, the word lost refers to the fact that we did belong to him, and the son came to seek and save that which was lost. So we were his. We walked away, and he came to find us, and he came to die for us, and he loves us. So I hope that's a thought that you could take through the day with you.
Speaker:Go ahead, Robert. No, I you're we're closing down, but like what you said about the foundation before the foundation of the earth, that that next verse, when you think about someone giving you a gift or something like that, when when you think about somebody giving you a gift or or or, you know, if it's just like uh an afterthought, you know what I mean? Like, I forgot their birthday, you know what I mean? So I'm gonna run out to the store and pick something up real quick. That's usually an afterthought. There wasn't a lot of thought and intention that was going into that gift. But the fact that you said you brought up the point that before the foundation of the earth, God ordained this. God, we weren't far from his mind. We were we were there ever since the beginning, and he knew what was gonna happen. And his gift of that precious blood of Jesus is such a wonderful and incredible gift. And it's so priceless. And the fact that he thought about it even before time it happened, knew that he knew that we he was thinking of us. He was think that just that heightens the the the the amount in my mind, the amount of love that he had towards us. And thinking about that changes my whole perspective here on earth. Definitely.
Austin Gardner:So today, as you go through your day, consider this. He loves you, he paid the supreme price for you. And uh he loves you right now without anything that you do. He loves you because he is love. It's not because of what you do or what you don't do, because all of that's it's cheap compared to what he's done for you, and he loves you above and beyond anything you could ever imagine. Any final words for today, Robert?
Speaker:Go out, put in your mind and your heart today as you walk throughout the day and you go to work and as you're out there doing whatever the Lord has has for you today. Think on this. He bought you with his own son's blood. It was just like a lamb that was without spot, without blemish. It was something extremely precious, something that he said was was priceless. And he was thinking about you before the time began. And so go with that. Go knowing that. And that that that thought, those thoughts will literally change and impact your life.
Austin Gardner:No doubt. Well, thank y'all so very much again for being with Robert. Thank you for sharing your devotional thought for today. And uh, we're praying for you. We love you. We'd love to hear from you if you'd like to ever send any correspondence or ask any questions. We'd be glad to talk to you. Share this with other people if you would. Thank you so much for being with us today. We'll see you next time. Amen.
