A sense amplifier (11) and method for sensing a MRAM cell (77) is provided. The sense amplifier (11) includes a precharge circuit (13) having an operational amplifier (40, 42) that uses a voltage divider (115, 116) in a feedback path to control the amount of charge stored on a capacitor (104, 105). During a precharge portion of a read operation, the charge stored on the capacitor (104, 105) is used to precharge the sense amplifier (11). By using charge sharing to precharge the sense amplifier (11), the sense amplifier (11) can be precharged to a steady state common mode voltage more quickly, thus decreasing time required for a read operation.