What Did That Verse Say Again?

Every week in senior Religion class at school we have a memory verse quiz. These quizzes are usually fairly easy and each week I find myself cramming the verse into my head ten minutes before class. This last Tuesday was no exception. This week's passage was Romans 5:6-8: 

^"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

I was able to memorize it just in time for class to begin, hardly even recognizing what it was saying. I hadn't thought about this passage again, until today.
 
This morning I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across a video a friend had shared about a girl who had once attempted suicide. It was a touching video of this girl holding up note cards that explained her journey through life and how she almost killed herself. It explained how she now knows that she has a purpose and that God loves her. Then, near the end, she quoted the last part of Romans 5:8, one of the verses I had to memorize, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 

That hit me hard. This girl's testimony gave that verse so much more meaning. Here I was, just memorizing that verse for a little five point quiz, while this girl is living her life because of that verse, because Christ died for us. I hadn't even thought about what the verse really meant. As Christians, we often read scripture without taking the time to truly understand what it means. There are verses like John 3:16 or Philippians 4:13 that we have heard all of our lives and we often find ourselves skimming right through them. Those verses have incredible meaning. It is amazing to realize that God truly did send His son to die for us and that we can do anything through His strength. Next time you are reading a Bible passage, or even if you have to memorize one for class, I want to challenge you to take a few minutes to reflect on what it really means. Then, I think we will genuinely appreciate what God has done for us.