How God sees us apart from Christ.

"The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit." (Psalm 5:5-6, NASB95)
"But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear." (Isaiah 59:2, NASB95)
These verses give us a rather good look at how God sees man apart from Christ. You might think that you are a rather good person and that surly God will overlook your shortcomings. That is not true. God is a holy God and expects the same from us. Dr. Geisler stated it perfectly in his Systematic Theology:
“From a theological stand point, sin is anything that falls short of God’s perfect moral nature. Paul wrote that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) God said “I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:45). It is plain, then, that the ultimate objective standard is God’s absolute moral perfection, and anything that falls short of it is sin.” [1]
Sin in its most basic definition means to miss the mark. (Hebrew חָטָא chata H2398 and Greek ἁμαρτάνω hamartanō G264). And missing the mark has consequences. In a game of darts missing the mark means having a lower score and perhaps loosing the game. In our relationship to God missing the mark means separation from Him in hell. Hell is basically, forever being alone with no check on all the desires of your heart and with no way to fulfill those desires.
Why cannot God overlook sin? He makes the rules, so why does he not just choose to overlook our sin?
It is because of His perfect nature that He cannot. To overlook our sin would be a violation of his perfection. While it is true that He is perfect love, He is also perfect righteousness, and perfect justice. In order to deal with our sin without destroying His perfect nature God had to come up with a plan that satisfies His justice and righteousness.
If God’s standard is perfection and our best is far short of perfection, then what hope is there for us?
If you got a really good running start and tried to jump the Grand Canyon, you would have a very bad day. If on the other hand there were a bridge you could walk across then you would be able to cross. Jesus Christ is the bridge between God and man.
Only perfection could satisfy God’s justice and righteousness. Christ offered His perfection to mankind in the only way that would be available to all; by the means of faith. God’s view of a person changes when they believe in Christ. His justice and righteousness are satisfied and He is free to have a relationship with that person.

[1] Systematic Theology Volume Three, p106, Norman Geisler.