“For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully” (1 Peter 2: 19 KJV).
Man is body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5: 23). He is not an entity that has or was later given a body, soul, and spirit, but is a created entity that is body, soul, and spirit. Man is conscious of his outside world and his inside world.
With the body, man is conscious through his sensory organs of the world in which he lives. With his soul and the power he has to objectify and examine self, he is conscious of his sin, hate, love, fears, courage, weaknesses, strengths, and all other vices or virtues of the soul. With his spirit, if he is saved, he is conscious of the indwelling presence of God (Romans 8: 16). A lost man may be conscious of himself and the world he lives in but can not be conscious of God because his spirit is dead in trespasses, sin, and separated from God (Ephesians 2: 1).
“Both conscious and conscience come from the Latin conscire, to know inwardly. Conscious is an inward alertness or awareness. Conscience is an inward knowing of right and wrong. To know inwardly is itself based on Latin scire, to know, which also gives us our word science.”
The phrase “conscience toward God” in our text signifies a consciousness of God. A conscience that is so impressed and controlled by the idea of God that the Christian realizes that persecution is to be born in accordance to God’s will, and that it is done in the light of His countenance.
If our conscience has been educated by the Word of God (KJV), we inwardly know of the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God. We are aware that God is conscious of everything we’re facing, has power over everything, and sees everything. And with our spirit, we are in constant contact with just such a God.
It is being conscious of God and His willingness to help us that we overcome the evident fears and weaknesses we are conscious of in our self. We are aware of the foes we face in this world and consciously see God give us the victory over them.
We are conscious, alerted, and made aware of sin in ourselves when our conscience is defiled, and it places our sin before us. We are conscious of our sins being forgiven and the restoration of our fellowship with God when we repent of our sins.
We become more conscious of God’s work in our lives as we become more sensitive to the things of the Spirit and insensitive to the things of the world.
