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“Which is what I am saying. God KNOWS, but we CHOOSE. He doesn’t predestine and choose for us, but he KNOWS.”

I think what we are dealing with is the imprecision of language. To say “HE doesn’t predestine...” when we read, “those He foreknew He did predestinate...” is to be inaccurate, imprecise, while to say he does not choose for us is correct. And, to say that He KNOWS and not understand that to mean He has therefore predestinated us (in Acts we read that Christ was “...delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God...” to be slain is, likewise to be inaccurate.

And then, concerning God choosing, what of this:

Rom 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

Has God chosen them (and chosen FOR them) for wrath? The text indicates yes (when taken by itself). But in the context of all scripture, Christ died for these, as well. They have chosen to reject Him. God, knowing this from the beginning of beginnings chooses to use these for His purposes nonetheless.

In matters such as these, I often think of time (in the human sense)—a line segment having a starting point and going forward toward some end point (out into the future somewhere). At that end point, time will stop and be no more. But there will still exist eternity, and now the line segment will be compared against a line that stretches back into eternity past and out into eternity to come. I like to think of this as God-time. We, trapped in finite human-time, cannot comprehend such things. David said, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Psalm 139). How can we fully understand the purposes of God with finite minds trapped inside finite time and space (but one day we will know even as we are known).

So...God gives us His word, reveals His character and nature through them (and, most of all, through His Son). And, one day, we will see that He knew the end from the beginning (He was viewing our finite line segment of time from His infinite eternal line of time—ugh, sounding worse and worse here) and we will see that He chose us from before the foundations of the world! We will see that before we were formed in the womb, He knew us. He knew our down-sittings and our up-risings. He knew us from before that line segment! How can we say He did not choose us? How can we say that He did not predestinate us?

Reading and knowing these things, how can we not CHOOSE to follow Him!