I once read a story in a martial arts book about a beginning student who was over-eager to get his black belt. After asking his sensei/instructor many times, "How long before I can get my black belt", the sensei angrily threw one at his feet. "Here is your black belt! Take it!".

The shocked student understood the lesson. He had made getting his black belt into an idol. An idol is something that we worship, but is actually worthless. A real, earned, black belt is something that the student would get, eventually — if he kept up with his training over a long period. The value in what he was doing was from his ongoing training, and the many benefits that gave him. Not from the colour of the belt itself. It's just a colour. The colour of his belt did not have to be an idol, but he had made it into one — with the way he thought about it, as if the colour (representing the end goal) was the important thing.

This story can be used as a metaphor for many things (and I'll probably write more about some of them later...) — but one of them is to use it as a reminder that, especially as Christians, we don't need to focus too much on the end goal.

We are saved. We can look forward to heaven, just as people (perhaps including ourselves as well) who practice fitness regularly can look forward to improvement, compared to how our lives would be with no training or practice. But it's not something we need to wait for like an obsession. Nor like we're not worthy now. We have everything we need, right now.

Yet having everything we need right now does not mean we can just stop, and forget about everything positive we do to move forward and improve. And this applies to both our physical bodies, and our relationship with Jesus.

We do have everything we need right now. And one of these things we need right now, and can have right now, is our motivation to stay on track, and to keep progresing, gradually but continually improving in looking after both our physical health — and our spiritual health, which some people call sanctification.