"True gratitude or thankfulness to God for His kindness to us, arises from a foundation laid before, of love to God for what He is in Himself; whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation. The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God, for kindness received, always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, viz. God's own excellency."

In other words:

You wouldn't be honored if I thanked you often for your gifts to me, but had no deep and spontaneous regard for you as a person. You would feel insulted no matter how much I thanked you for your gifts. If your character and personality do not attract me or give me joy in being around you, then you will just feel used, like a tool or a machine to produce the things I really love.

God is not glorified if the foundation of our gratitude is the worth of the gift and not the excellency of the Giver. ~ A Godward Life ~ John Piper

"I believe in the doctrine of election, because I'm quite certain that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen Him. And I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He would have never chosen me afterwards. And He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me for I could have never found any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love." - C.H. Spurgeon

Small Thoughts on a Big God:

God does not have to choose anyone, yet He does. And what's so special about that is that it is not the person that's necessary special, but it's His love towards those whom He has chosen that makes His choice special.