At 79, Joyce Meyer Got Tattooed to 'Honor God'

Joyce Meyer doesn’t have to remind the enemy as to whom she belongs. She’s been serving God for more than 55 years.

But just for good measure, Meyer, who turns 80 this year, recently decided to get not one, but two tattoos—something she said she would never have thought to do in her lifetime. One of the tattoos, which simply says “Love,” is embossed on her left ankle. The other, which says “I Belong to Jesus,” was drawn on her left shoulder in a place she says “where you all cannot see.”

Meyer says she was inspired to get the tattoos by Isaiah 49:16, which reads, “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me” (MEV). But it took a long time for her to convince herself to go through with it.

“Ever since I read that Scripture that said God has us tattooed on His, I thought, I’m going to get a tattoo that says I belong to Jesus,” Meyer said in a recent Joyce Meyer Ministries conference. “I said that about five years ago in a meeting in Australia. But here’s where the story gets interesting:

“A tattoo artist heard me say that. He had gone through the most hellish things. He had bipolar disorder, so his mind was already kinda messed up. And then, a bunch of religious Christians had him convinced that since he was a tattoo artist, he was going to hell. When he heard me say that I wanted to get a tattoo, one that said ‘I belong to Jesus,’ he decided to go back into business. And, he decided he wanted to do my tattoo. He wrote that down on a piece of paper and he kept it for five years.”

In late 2022, a friend of Meyer’s in Dallas told Meyer the he knew about a tattoo artist that was a friend of his and that confessed that he would one day tattoo Meyer.

“These things are not coincidences,” Meyer said. “Long story short, I got tattooed on my shoulder. I have a nice little cross back there. And, just for good measure, I put ‘Love’ on my foot to remind me to walk in love every day.”

Meyer says she hesitated at first to allow herself to get tattooed because she knew she would receive letters chastising her for doing so. But then she says she didn’t care about that and that the whole thing was “between me and God.”

“It’s a matter of my heart,” Meyer said. “When I stand before God on Judgment Day, before He makes any decision about me, He’s not going to call you and say, ‘Is there anything you would like to add about Joyce? Each of us is going to stand before God and give an account of our life and He is not going to ask someone else what they think about what we did. Do you honestly think I was so stupid that I didn’t pray about this and believe with all of my heart? I did it as an honor to God.

“So, let’s stop the judging and the criticizing and just don’t bother writing me letters. They (the tattoos) are there and they are not going away. I like them and I don’t have any conviction about it. I love God, and I wanted the devil to know that 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 not going to let some snooty, religious attitude keep somebody else out of heaven.”