This is a good explanation of election by Oswald Chambers. Please read.

God elected a certain nation to be His bondslave, and through that nation a knowledge of His salvation is to come to all the world. The history of that nation is a record of awful idolatry and backsliding, they remained true neither to God’s prophets nor to God Himself; but in spite of everything the fulfilment of God’s purpose for the nation of His choice is certain. The election of the nation by God was not for the salvation of individuals; the elect nation was to be the instrument of salvation to the whole world. The story of their distress is due entirely to their deliberate determination to use themselves for a purpose other than God’s. The beginning of their corruption was their desire to have a king and to be like other nations—“Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” Whenever Israel sought to use themselves for their own purposes, God smashed those purposes up.

We must be careful not to confuse the predestination of God by making His election include every individual; or to have the idea that because God elected a certain nation through whom His salvation was to come, therefore every individual of that nation is elected to salvation. The history of the elect nation disproves this, but it does not alter God’s purpose for the nation. Individuals of the elect nation have to be saved in the same way as individuals of nations that have not been elected. Election refers to the unchangeable purpose of God, not to the salvation of individuals. Each individual has to choose which line of predestination he will take—God’s line or the devil’s line. Individual position is determined by individual choice, but that is neither here nor there in connection with God’s purpose for the human race. Individuals enter into the realisation of the creative purpose of God for the human race by being born again of the Spirit; but we must not make the predestination of God for the race to include every individual, any more than God’s predestination for the elect nation included every individual. Salvation is of universal application, but human responsibility is not done away with.

The purpose of God for man is that he should “glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.” Sin has switched the human race off on to another line, but it has not altered God’s purpose for the human race in the tiniest degree. The election of the perfect fitness for God of the human race is abiding. It is exhibited in the Man Christ Jesus, and that is the ideal the human race is destined to reach in spite of all that sin and the devil can do—the “measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” As Son of Man, Jesus Christ mirrors what the human race is to be like on the basis of Redemption. Sin and the devil may do their worst, but God’s purpose will only be made manifest all the more gloriously (see Romans 5:12-21).

 Oswald Chambers, So Send I You: The Secret of the Burning Heart (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1930).