Deserving ... What?

Have you ever noticed how much our of rotten attitudes and sins (well, at least my rotten attitudes and sins) flow from a certain, subtle thought that often whispers in our head: "I deserve [fill in the blank]"? These days God has been mercifully but often painfully showing me my own "wretchedness" ... to use the words of Corinthians, that I am simply a jar of clay, holding a treasure, and my significance and identity is worthless if it is not tied to the glittering treasure which I hold. To think that I "deserve" anything is almost a joke ... but I too often think this anyway! When God closes a door that I was really hoping He would keep open, I frequently get rather irritated, thinking, "I deserved to be able to do that!" When God is "silent" when I passionately pray to Him, and when my prayer requests are answered with a "No" (with no explanation!) I will very often become discouraged and think, "What did I do or pray wrong to deserve this?" Sometimes I will very deliberately "drop my guard" and "permit" myself to go against what God would want, thinking, "Well, I've tried so hard to be good all week ... I deserve a break" (actually a good clue to cause of the second half of that sentence is the first).

You get the idea. The notion that I somehow deserve special treatment is one which time and again I use to permit or excuse sin. And yet when I read the Bible, I see a mirror-image of myself, deserving only the wrath of God - nothing else. I see someone who has received the undeserved grace of God, epitomized in the sacrifice of His Son for me, and my being adopted into His family as His son. THAT'S undeserved grace.
May God help me (and us all) to remember what we deserve and what we don't, and may His Spirit enable us to see Jesus Christ with "unveiled faces" to behold His glory and the glory of the Good News, to be transformed into His likeness.