No Such Thing As A Person Who Wants To Be Saved But Is Not Chosen By God

There is no such thing as a person who truly wants to be saved yet is turned down by God. Every one who truly wants to be saved WILL BE SAVED, because only those chosen by God will truly want to be saved. Put another way, those who want to be saved are essentially already chosen by God, and their desire to be saved is evidence that they are chosen by God. We will never seek God if left to ourselves, apart from God's divine intervention in our lives. Those who choose to seek God do so because God first chose them and enabled them to seek Him (Ephesians 1:3-14; John 6:44,65; Romans 3:10-12). And whomever God chooses, that person WILL be saved all the way (John 6:37-38, Philippians 1:6). So there is no such thing as a person who naturally wants God if God didn't first choose that person, and there is no such thing as a person that God chooses who somehow doesn't make it to heaven, because whomever God chooses shall never be lost.

God Is Not Any Less Powerful or Worthy Just Because Some Are Not Saved

The fact that God chooses some but not others, the fact that not everyone is saved, the fact that suffering exists, the fact that God orchestrated so that Adam would choose sin, the fact that God orchestrates so that some people accept Jesus and others don't... none of that makes God any less powerful or any less worthy of worship. God is and has always been worthy. He chooses to do things for His glory, which is endless. It's not like He set out to save everyone and failed, or it's not like He set out to create a world without evil and failed. He set out to glorify Himself and He doesn't fail that. All of this contributes to His glory. We may not understand how exactly certain things contribute to His glory, and certain things may not come across well with some people. But God is the potter, and He is sovereign and can do whatever He wants. The good thing is that God does things that are righteous and just, and loving, and most of all, He consistently glorifies Himself, which is good because He is worthy of worship and if He cannot value such worthiness then His values are screwed up. He is not an evil God that chooses to do things out of malice, and He is not just bored and trying to amuse Himself, and He is not callous at the fact that some must perish, but He is a God that does things a certain way to glorify Himself, and those who find themselves among His flock are indeed to be in awe of the fact that God would choose us. God is not any less powerful just because certain people must perish. He could have made it that way so that nobody would have to perish, but for some reason the way that He did things results in greater glory.

God Actively Saves, Does Not Actively Condemn

So it seems unattractive that God would choose some and condemn other people... But this is not entirely accurate... The truth is that God is not an evil God that goes around choosing people to condemn. People, left to themselves in their sin, are already condemned, and they destroy themselves. It takes supernatural intervention to make salvation possible, whereas condemnation happens naturally from the natural order of things. God chooses to save people and actively saves them. He doesn't choose to actively condemn people. Yes the Bible says God prepares people for destruction to make His riches known to the people He prepared in advance for His glory (Romans 9), but the preparation done for those destined for destruction is a passive word whereas the preparation done for those destined for glory is an active word, in Greek. If this sounds like too subtle to make a difference, just talk to the people who argue about euthanasia. So God actively saves and lets others be condemned. Yes God does destroy those who are already condemned, in His righteous anger, but He does not actively condemn them. He may choose to harden those who are already condemned. Sin is indeed so terrible that it warrants condemnation... the wages of sin is death. If anyone thinks that sin is not so bad, just think about all the suffering... Suffering shows us how heinous our sin is. God does not necessarily inject suffering to teach us lessons. The suffering is a byproduct of our own sin. Destruction and death and ugliness come from ourselves and our sin.

God's Glory Is/Was Never Lacking

God doesn't need us to add to His glory. He is sufficient and glorious in and of Himself (the trinity). It's not like God lacked glory. God already had glory. But somehow you can always have more. You can keep adding to the glory and it would never end. That's why heaven is for eternity... there is no end. He didn't need humans in order to add to His glory because (1) He already had glory and (2) if He wanted to continue His glory He could have chosen something else. But He chose us, which makes it so marvelous. It's a bit paradoxical but the nature of glory is that God has already achieved glory and has always had glory, within the trinity but somehow God can continue to add to His glory... I'm still trying to understand this... whether it's like infinity plus infinity is still infinity...

I don't like the infinity argument because that frames the idea in quantitative terms. A better explanation is that God has always had infinite glory, but He chooses to magnify it through us (magnifying something does not change the fundamental nature of the thing being magnified). Or it is revealed more so through God's plan (meaning it's always been there).

It's About God's Glory, Not Our Salvation

God's goal is not to save every person but it is His glory. He is powerful enough to save everyone and powerful enough to not have anyone ever be fallen in the first place. He is powerful enough to eradicate all suffering and evil, and He is powerful enough to not have let suffering and evil exist in the first place. He is powerful enough to be glorious without wrath, and to have good without evil. But for some reason, His sovereign will made things this way for His own purposes and His own glory. For some reason He made us and His will made things transpire the way it did, for His glory. The fact that not everyone is saved does not somehow compromise God's power, sovereignty, and perfection. This begs the question... is God lacking in glory then such that He has to add to it? The answer is no God is not lacking...