In Romans 12:1 Paul brings us face-to-face with this gateway: 'Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship." In the preceding eleven chapters of Romans, Paul has expounded on the boundless mercy of God toward the human race and the full provision He has made for all men, Jew or Gentile, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Now he comes to the response God requires from each of us. It is simple and down-to-earth: Offer your body to God as a living sacrifice. It is a sacrifice that God requires of us for His plan to work. But why does Paul emphasize that it is to be a living sacrifice? Because he is contrasting it with the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were first slain and then placed dead on the altar. In the New Testament God requires each believer to offer his or her body just as totally on His altar—but it is to be a living body, one that is active and dedicated in His service. There is no difference in the totality of the sacrifice. In the New Testament as in the Old, God requires complete, unreserved surrender. To offer your body to God in this way means that you no longer claim ownership or control of it. You no longer decide where it is to go, what it is to eat or wear, or what kind of service it is to perform. All that is now decided by the One to whom you have yielded complete and final control. Since He is your Creator, He knows better than you do what He can accomplish in and through that yielded body of yours. The first result of this surrender is that it makes your body holy. In Matthew 23:19 Jesus reminds the Pharisees altar that sanctifies—or makes holy—the sacrifice placed on it, and not the other way around. This applies to your body when it is placed on God's altar. By this act it is sanctified, made holy, set apart to God. His altar. In Romans 12:2 Paul goes on to describe the second result of offering your body upon God's altar: "Do not conform any longer