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Dallas Willard on Jesus as master of science and technology
Dallas Willard, this present universe
Dallas Willard, the gospel is good news for all

Stated in other words, the intention of God is that we should each become the kind of person whom he can set free in his universe, empowered to do what we want to do. Just as we desire and intend this, so far as possible, for our children and others we love, so God desires and intends it for his children. But character, the inner directedness of the self, must develop to the point where that is possible.

This explains the meaning of the words of the prophet Daniel, utilized by Jesus to conclude one of his great parables of the kingdom: “Then shall the good shine brilliantly, like the sun, in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43; compare Dan. 12:3). We sing from this passage, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright, shining as the sun....” But we should understand that brightness always represents power, energy, and that in the kingdom of our Father we will be active, unimaginably creative.

We will not sit around looking at one another or at God for eternity but will join the eternal Logos, “reign with him,” in the endlessly ongoing creative work of God. It is for this that we were each individually intended, as both kings and priests (Exod. 19:6; Rev. 5:10).
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A place in God’s creative order has been reserved for each one of us from before the beginnings of cosmic existence. His plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the universe.

[Jesus] used symbols pointing to eternal life as limitlessly enhanced life, as a state of being more intensely alive in an existence which is both perfect fulfillment and yet also endless activity and newness.
John Hick, Center of Christianity, p. 112.

There is, at a minimum, no reason to think that the world of nature will cease to exist or be destroyed. In a Trinitarian universe—a universe grounded in a society of divine persons—that is entirely a matter of the purpose that world serves. As long as it serves a purpose in such a universe—as it most certainly does—it will continue to exist, through whatever transformations may come. The material universe is both an essential display of the greatness and goodness of God and the arena of the eternal life of finite spirits, including the human.

This Heavenly city, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adapts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced.
— Saint Augustine, The City of God, book 19, paragraph 17.

I am thoroughly convinced that God will let everyone into heaven who, in his considered opinion, can stand it. But “standing it” may prove to be a more difficult matter than those who take their view of heaven from popular movies or popular preaching may think. The fires in heaven may be hotter than those in the other place.
It might prove helpful to think occasionally of how, exactly, I would be glad to be in heaven should I “make it.” Will it be like a nice, air-conditioned luxury hotel with unlimited room service and spectacular amenities for eternity? I often wonder how happy and useful some of the fearful, bitter, lust-ridden, hate-filled Christians I have seen involved in church or family or neighborhood or political battles would be if they were forced to live forever in the unrestrained fullness of the reality of God, which we tried to look at in chapter 3, and with multitudes of beings really like him.

Our drive for significance is a reflection of the creative impulse of God. The opposite of egoism.

Egotism is pathological self-obsession, a reaction to anxiety about whether one really does count. It is a form of acute self-consciousness and can be prevented and healed only by the experience of being adequately loved. It is, indeed, a desperate response to frustration of the need we all have to count for something and be held to be irreplaceable, without price.
Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being. It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone’s hand. It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny.
Our hunger for significance is a signal of who we are and why we are here, and it also is the basis of humanity’s enduring response to Jesus. For he always takes individual human beings as seriously as their shredded dignity demands, and he has the resources to carry through with his high estimate of them.

Jesus is actually looking for people he can trust with his power. He knows that otherwise we remain largely helpless in the face of the evils around us and unable to promote his will for good in this world.

Dallas Willard says it should be translated "kingdom of the heavens", and that the heavens are everything from the air we breathe, all the way up to the furthest reaches of existence