I was recently reading the book of Exodus, in particular where G-d tells Moses and the Jewish people about the construction of the tabernacle and the altar. The striking thing about the altar is the description of daily sacrifices that are required.

As a metaphor, this resonates to what we're talking about there. The nature of the universe is such that change happens much more through compounding than through one-time miracles (eg, if you want an extra 100K in the bank, the easiest way to do that is to have saved $27 every day over the last 10 years than somehow to wish for the 100K to land in your account in one shot, the way to lose 10 lbs is to cut out 100 calories a day for a year, etc.)

Back to Exodus - you can think of "$27/day" or "100 calories/day" as a form of sacrifice. You can always spend that money on something, you an always eat an extra treat - to not do that requires consistent, daily, sacrifice, albeit small.

That's why when someone does something consistently, we say he does it "religiously" - religion teaches you daily consistency in many ways. We don't sacrifice on the altar nowadays, but think about daily morning prayer for example - if you can be consistent with that you can be consistent with a lot of other things.