But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth;
God chose you from the beginning ...  God chose all men to be saved, in the sense that every man ever born on earth was destined to be a child of God; but the freedom of the human will nullifies that eternal decree in many.  In the New Testament, as here, God's choosing implies also the believer's having accepted.