Televangelist Joyce Meyer has two new tattoos to “honor God.”
“I have a nice little cross back there (on her back),” Meyer said in a recent YouTube video. “And it says ‘I belong to Jesus.’ And just for good measure, I put love on my foot to remind me to walk in love.
“Dave’s 82 and got a tattoo,” she continued. “I’m 79 and I’m doing fine. The guy said that we were the oldest people he had ever tattooed.”
Meyer has been making the biblical case for tattoos for years, pushing back on Christians who argue tattoos are a “mark of the beast.” Back in 2018, Meyer explained why Christians who use the Bible to argue against them are taking the Scripture out of context, and she shared that she’d even considered getting one of her own.
What she didn’t know then was that an inspired tattoo artist was listening to her argument.
“It’s really a neat story,” she told the mostly female audience. “I don’t know if I can get the whole thing out right. But [the tattoo artist] had gone through the most hellish thing. First of all, he had bipolar disorder. And so, his mind was already kind of messed up. And then a bunch of religious Christians got him convinced that because he was a tattoo artist that he was going to Hell. When he heard me say that I wanted to get a tattoo that said, ‘I belong to the Lord,’ or ‘I belong to Jesus. he said he decided to go back into business.”
The tattoo artist also decided he wanted to be the one to create the tattoo Meyer desired. Last fall, Meyer discovered both her and the tattoo artist had a mutual friend in Dallas, Texas. Meyer said she didn’t believe the connection was coincidental, so she and Dave got tattoos from the artist.
Meyer also addressed her critics, telling that that she “feels at peace” about the decision and has prayed about it already.
“The whole thing is it’s between me and God,” she said. “And it’s a matter of my heart. And when I stand before God on Judgment Day before He makes any decision about me, He’s not going to call any one of you and say, ‘Is there anything you’d like to add about Joyce?’
“I’m really OK with everybody having their opinion, but I have a right to mine, too,” she continued. “I wanted the devil to know I belong to Jesus. He bought me and paid for me with His blood. I am not my own. I am seriously committed and dedicated to God. And I am not going to let some snooty religious attitude keep somebody else out of Heaven.”
