Romans 8:29

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

I don’t want to get into a huge discourse on foreknowledge, predestination and man’s free will. I believe all are involved in our salvation. This verse tells us God foreknew us, and He predestined us to be saved. There are only a few passages of Scripture that refer to us being predestined: Rom. 8:29-30, and Eph. 1:5, 11. The same word (pro-orizo) occurs in 1 Cor. 2:7, translated ‘(fore-)ordained’. Thus there are five occurrences in Scripture – the number of grace. The word ‘foreknew’ (proginosko) is interesting: it also occurs in five places. In Acts 26:5, Paul says how the Jews persecuting him ‘knew before’ that he was a Pharisee. In Rom. 11:2, we read how God foreknew Israel. In 1 Pet. 1:20, it refers to Christ. In 2 Pet. 3:17, Peter is reiterating something that his readers ‘already knew’. To know (ginosko) is to learn by effort or experience, subjectively (in contrast to oida, also translated ‘know’, but in an intuitive or objective sense).
God didn’t just have a sense that we’d turn out to be worthwhile. He knew by experience (He is, of course, outside time). He chose Israel as the seed of Abraham even though He knew they were aa rebellious and stubborn people. Think if He had chosen a nation that loved Him all the time and never went off the rails. What kind of witness would that give to the world? But in Israel, we see God’s longsuffering and His eagerness to forgive.
We may have a similar story. None of us are perfect. But God knew how we would respond to Him, so He has predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I find that truly amazing.