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
Finding Assurance When Faith Feels Fragile
What if the cure for spiritual doubt isn’t trying harder but changing your focus? In this episode, we examine Peter’s letter to believers who’d lost almost everything: their homes, comfort, and normal life, yet were told to “greatly rejoice.” Their anchor wasn’t optimism. It was a living hope rooted in the resurrection of Jesus and an inheritance that can never decay or fade.
Genuine assurance develops when you stop measuring your faith by your performance and begin trusting the One who sustains you. Peter’s words are intentional: your inheritance is reserved in heaven for you, and the power of God keeps you through faith. That double security changes everything. Trials stop feeling like threats and start revealing where your trust rests. With stories of personal doubt and reminders from Galatians 2:20 and Hebrews 12:2, we trace a clear truth: God begins, God keeps, and God completes what He starts.
If you’ve ever wondered, Did I pray right? Did I believe enough? Am I doing enough good? This conversation will bring relief. Assurance doesn’t rest on how strong your faith feels, but on who you have faith in. Like Noah inside the ark, safety isn’t in hanging on from the outside; it’s in resting on the inside, trusting what God has already finished.
We also look beyond ourselves to the global church, remembering believers under pressure in West Africa and around the world, standing firm in the same living hope.
Come for theology that steadies your heart and stay for practical peace you can carry into the week: abundant mercy, living hope, incorruptible inheritance, and the unshakable truth that God’s power holds you.
Short Summary:
Peter reminds scattered believers that assurance doesn’t come from effort but from trust. God births us into a living hope, secures our inheritance, and keeps us by His power, turning doubt into steady confidence in Christ.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Welcome back to Followed by Mercy. I'm here today again with Robert Canfield, my co-host, and he has been helping me more than anybody. And we have been just talking and chewing the fat. We were discussing salvation, how to know for sure you're saved, how to feel secure in your salvation. And uh you've been in on a couple of those questions.
Robert Canfield:Yeah, if we could like piggyback even from last episode that we talked about, we talked about being thankfulness. Yeah. And this is a a podcast called Followed by Mercy. And I feel like this passage right here in First Peter hits them all. It hits mercy, hits security, it hits even the gratefulness or the rejoicing thing, too. So you're in 1 Peter chapter 1. Chapter 1, verse 6, he says, Wherein ye greatly rejoice. That wherein Paul Peter says, wherein ye greatly rejoice, talking about being thankful, rejoicing, having that attitude. There's some stuff that causes that rejoicing. And I think it you can find it right there.
Austin Gardner:If they read the verse, they're going to see that you're rejoicing even though you're in the middle of a lot of trouble. Yeah. And that's what these people that Paul's or Peter's writing.
Robert Canfield:By the way, that's one of the times people doubt their salvation. Hardships often shake faith or shakes people's beliefs. But I think people look at it negatively. But it's a good thing. It's a good thing for you to question yourself. It's a good thing because then you either get to see who you really are or you get to see that who you aren't. And so difficult times it's not as bad.
Austin Gardner:There's something wrong with a person. Uh I recently said this when preaching, examining themselves to see whether they'd be in the faith or not. You want to, you know, and hard times will make you think.
Robert Canfield:It does. It's the good times when we think everything's going well. And it's the times when we're real successful, we don't think we need anything.
Austin Gardner:And so nobody knows anything about this nowadays, but in the old days, you used to hang your clothes, you didn't run them through a dryer, you hung them on a clothesline. And uh somebody an old preacher said when I was a kid, he said, if you can sing when your wash falls on the ground, in other words, when the clothesline breaks, and then and hardship when things are going wrong, then that tells something about your faith. And so we're being tested. But but we we want to talk about security here. Go ahead.
Robert Canfield:Yeah. So Peter, he's writing to a a group, the elect group, this people that have been scattered throughout all these different places. And I often think as I read through that, you know, being a refugee is a horrible thing. Um I just was in Burkina Faso this past year, and we were just driving, I was driving the bus down, and you'll see outside the towns, they'll see these little, it's almost like a tent city, you know what I mean? Like little places. And what happens is that it's it's according to the United Nations, it's the number one crisis in the world in Burkina Faso. And they have close to like, I think, 21, 23 million people, and they've had over three or four million people displaced from their homes because of the terrorists. They're in the northern part of Burkina. And you see these people come. It's a great time to pray for all those believers there in West Africa. And that's been on the news a lot. You know what I mean? Even the president talking about the the Christians there in Nigeria. But it that's not just in Nigeria, that's all over West Africa. Anyone that knows that, that's been traveling, they know that it's all over West Africa. And it's a good time to pray for our brothers. It's a good time to reach out to different missionaries, too, because they're living in unsettled times. Yep, for sure. And but going back to here, what what Peter's saying, these people they've been scattered throughout, and they've they've had to leave houses and homes and their roots, and they're they're all out there. But Peter is reminding them of some truth. He's reminding them of who they are. And he starts in verse three. He he says this. He said, he's almost like he's writing to these people he calls pilgrims and strangers. Okay? And then he starts. Foreigners. Travelers. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing for us to think about, too. We're just foreigners and travelers here. We're pilgrims. We don't have a city here. We're longing for the city to come. Uh, you look at the world that's going on right now, you see corruption, you see people doing wrong, you see nothing's just anymore. You don't know who to believe, who to trust. And all that is the world's kind of topsy turvy right now. It's always been topsy turvy, has it not?
Austin Gardner:Well, yeah, but I think, well, anyway, I think most of us tend to think it's worse right now. Well, I mean, you live during time of Hitler time, right?
Robert Canfield:You love to make fun of me, but I wasn't at a yeah, well, you yeah, no, I'm just picking on it. But there's I'm not trying to uh uh uh belittle this day and age, but my point is this the world is not our home. And there's always been corruption, there's always been bad things, uh bad times. I mean, I've never lived in a city where they killed all the boys two years a night younger, but yet Jesus lived during that time. That's right. And there's been terrible things that's going on throughout history, terrible, horrible things that's happened. And all that horrible stuff, it just shows us that, first of all, man's imagination is evil always, even from the time of their youth. And the second thing is this this is not our home. We are looking for a king that's gonna set up his rule and he's gonna be just and righteous. And so I don't have to put my my my trust down here, but when Peter writes and he says this in verse number three, he says this blessed be God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant, I love that next word, right? Abundant mercy, he hath begotten us, he hath birthed us. And what is God, our Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, what has he begotten us to? He says, a lively hope, a living expectation.
Austin Gardner:I think we ought to stop here. And if you're listening, the hope in the Bible is not the way, the way it's used in the Bible is not the way we use it today. It is it is an expectation, it is a confident expectation. In other words, this is what's going to happen. I'm just waiting on it. It hadn't happened yet, but I already know it's true. Amen. And so he is, and so it is by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I would like to say this about verse three, and I like to say this to every believer. The focus in verse three, a lot of your fear and doubt about your salvation comes because of who you're focused on. You're focused on you and how well you're doing, how well you're obeying, how well you're fulfilling, like you have, like you believe in a performance-based salvation, like you believe in how good you do. But in verse three, it's thank God, bless God, worship God in the Father of Jesus, which according to his abundant mercy, in other words, he, God, did it. Amen. God birthed us, he hath begotten us to this lively hope. He has given us, we're fully expecting all this to be true because God did it. And so if you really want to get some salvation security, you don't focus on you, you focus on God.
Robert Canfield:Well, he starts off verse three. He says, praise. And praise comes from a mind and a heart that understands something that's worshiping. That's what it blessed. Praise be God. Praise He's birthed us, He's given us. What is He birthed us to? You said it. This lively, this living expectation that was brought about by the resurrection. And then he goes into this to an inheritance. So we are praising God because we are expecting an inheritance to come. We are expecting an inheritance to come. Not just here on this earth, where we are looking for an inheritance, where he says it's incorruptible. That means there is no corruption there, right? That means that there is, it is, it is, it's not perishable. Now, mind you, he's talking to a bunch of guys that have been scattered abroad, right? People who have lived in a home or lived in a place where their father and their grandfather had. They have lost their inheritance. They've lost it. Physical, physical inheritance. The tree where they used to have their tire swing, it's gone now. That's right. All those things that generated those good memories, they've now been scattered throughout all these different places. And if you know anything about the New Testament, you know that those Jewish people and those people that followed after Jesus and the Jewish people, Jewish people that followed after the one true God, the God of Yahweh, the Jehovah, right? The I Am, the Lord, those people were mistreated. When Paul went to Corinth, he met Aquila and Priscilla. And Aquila and Priscilla used to live in Italy, but there was a Caesar there, or there was a there was a leader there that expelled the Jews from Rome or expelled the Jews from Italy because they weren't treated right. There was this expulsion of these people. And so these people are scattered. And so I bring all this about is because they have in their mind man, the things I I once held dear is now gone. But then he's saying, Hey guys, praise God, he gave you something lively, living, living, extravagant, now alive, still expected. This this hope right now is for right now, and that hope is it's an inheritance that won't perish away.
Austin Gardner:Uncorruptible, undefiled, fades out of way, reserved in heaven. God has done something for us. Yeah. And that we were talking about security, and look at verse five, who are kept. That's right. That that's what we were going to. Yeah.
Robert Canfield:Okay, wait a minute. No, that's a strong word. Go ahead. Yeah. So when you say, so this is the stuff, this he says, reserved in heaven, and then he says these two words for you, for you guys. God has this in this inheritance for you that's not gonna lifade, it's not gonna dissolve, it's not gonna corrode, it's not gonna be taken away from you. It's for you. And then you're like, okay, well, how am I gonna get to heaven? How am I gonna get to that that that part? How am I gonna be with him? He says this, who are kept by the power of God. Now you said that. So what's that word kept mean? You are guarded, you are confined, you are detained. By whose power? Held.
Austin Gardner:Held. By whose power? Well, it's not by yours. And that's the beautiful thing. You know, uh when when Noah has the ark and the storms come and everything's falling apart and they've lost everything, they're riding securely on the inside. Now, if you'd have nailed a nail to the outside of the ark, you'd have had to hold on. Yeah, but it's not about you holding on, it's about you resting in what Jesus did.
Robert Canfield:Amen. Amen. That's and that's what that's what Peter's reminding these people. You are kept by the power of God. Now, let me ask you a question. Is there anything more powerful than God?
Austin Gardner:Obviously, everything on this planet is created in a time that God doesn't even know time. He is before time, after time, above time, outside of time, and he is inside of time. But we only know our limited world. So the creator, God who made everything, is the one who's keeping us.
Robert Canfield:Amen. And then he says, You are the one, the creator, that's that that's that's keeping you. The way he saved you, he reminds you how you were saved. How were you saved? By faith or through faith unto salvation. He didn't say works, he said faith.
Austin Gardner:One of the things that makes people doubt their salvation is, am I doing enough? I did this. I did this. How about when I messed up? How about how about the good I've done? Have I done enough good? It's I don't always tithe. I don't know if I really believed enough. Well, how did I pray the right prayer? Exactly. Did I say the right thing? What if I didn't say the right words? Well, I don't know if I meant it. Did I have enough faith? Was I on both knees? Was I kneeling? Did I really believe, or was I just tricking my mind? Yeah, or was that emotion, or did I really mean it? Did I mean that? I listen, I was Do you not notice what we're doing? Every one of those little things right there were about you. Yeah.
Robert Canfield:I was That's being kept by you. I was building houses. I'll never forget which road I was on. I forget the name of it, but I could take you right to the house that we were building. I was building with Rufus Yoder and uh Rose Valley Construction. That was his business. And we were building, it was all it was a barn dominion before I knew there was actually barn dominions. And I was roofing and we were doing putting up shingles, and I got in my truck and I was driving down the road, and I was really contemplating like, God, did I really believe? Yeah, we do that. Did I have real faith? I messed up so much more after I believed. How could a person really believe do that? And I was thinking all these things, and maybe I'm not saved. As I as I was driving, I was listening to Adrian Rogers on the radio. And he, it's like, it's like the Holy Spirit knows when you need to hear stuff, right? Oh, we don't we don't give him a credit for who he is. But he said, Adrian Rogers said, God used him that day, and he says, it's not faith in your faith. It's where your faith's trusting in. So it's not me having faith in my faith, it's where my faith's trusting in.
Austin Gardner:And I think the the whole the whole point of the passage we chose to talk about is blessed be God. Yeah. It's it's God, and then you are it is God, the Father and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who begot us, who reborn us, rebirthed us, gave us new life, and who keeps us by his power.
Robert Canfield:He keeps us, and not only did he just give us a lively hope, he he died for us, right? He resurrected for us, right? It's all his work. If you look through it, it was his death, it was his resurrection, it's him birthing us, it's him keeping us, and this all this we just believe.
Austin Gardner:And and you know what the beauty of it is, is you got to get to focus off of you because actually, when Christ died, we were in Christ, we were buried in him, we were raised to walk in the newness of life in him. We're in Christ. Everything I have, it's not about my performance, about Christ's performance.
Robert Canfield:And then we think, then we think it's somehow, it's now our faith, and it's now resting on us and our faith. But then you brought up the fact in this this verse several, I don't know, it was a year ago or something like that. You told me, I am crucified with Christ. Therefore, I know was it Galatians 2.20. How's that go? Galatians 2.20. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lived in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The faith, not my faith, not by my faith, not by my justification, not by my trusting, but but the faith of the Son of God.
Austin Gardner:Jesus' faith who loved me that's heart and gave himself. I spent all my life and never noticed that. I didn't either. The faith of the Son of God.
Robert Canfield:It's not, yeah. That is such a great, great verse that really changed my mind. It was, and if you go a couple verses before it, he talks about by Jesus' faith. And it's not even it's not even my faith, it's just me trusting in him. It's not just his faith. It's by faith.
Austin Gardner:And here's the beauty of it we are in Christ.
Robert Canfield:Amen.
Austin Gardner:He he when he birthed us, he birthed us out of Adam. We were born in Adam, and we were birthed out of Adam into Christ.
Robert Canfield:And you know what? That birthing just doesn't, he just doesn't give us a new life. But that birthing also brought about an inheritance, is what what Peter's trying to tell these people. Yeah, and that inheritance doesn't fade away. That inheritance does not does not corrupt. That inheritance does not be, it's not stolen, it's not defiled, it's not changed. That inheritance is something that nothing can can can alter, nothing can change.
Austin Gardner:And so you may be a pilgrim and a foreigner, you may be in the dispersed diaspora, they call it, you may be one of the scattered ones, but that is not going to happen again. Because now you couldn't keep it, and your country couldn't keep it, and your government couldn't keep it, but it is now kept by the Creator Almighty, God of heaven. And so, what does he tell us to do with that? Greatly rejoice. So, and that's where we greatly rejoice. We greatly rejoice in the fact that it's God, not us. If it was me, it would be greatly worry.
Robert Canfield:Yeah, greatly worry, greatly be guarded. Yeah, greatly consider, greatly be vigilant, so you don't lose.
Austin Gardner:Because it'd be very easy for us to believe that we blow it.
Robert Canfield:Because we would we would blow it. We we always do, but because it's by God and it's always been by God, then we can just like rest and say, You got it, thank you.
Austin Gardner:That's right. And that's what we do. We rest in his finished work. That is a funny thing, too, you know, when we talk about it among believers, they talk about the finished work, but it ain't finished, not the way they look at it. No, we we turn that into I know it's with I know we say finished, but I'm still worried. Yeah. No, if it's finished, it's finished. He's done his part. Now it's my time to live up to my part. And it's Jesus said it is finished. I love, well, it's time to end this one today, but in Hebrews 12, too, it's it's looking under Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Robert Canfield:So he started it and he's finishing our faith. That's right. And so it's not about you.
Austin Gardner:He began the good work, and he's going to continue it on. So I hope that you will find some security in the fact that God begat you, God birthed you, and God keeps you. Amen. All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening. I hope it's been a blessing today, and we will look forward to talking to you again.
