Matthew 27:1-5: in context

In the morning the chief priests and elders decide to put Jesus to death and hand him over to Pilate. And then the tragic figure of Judas returns. Seeing that Jesus is condemned, Judas is seized with remorse and brings back the thirty pieces of silver to the priests, confessing, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they brush him off: what is that to us? See to it yourself. Judas throws the silver into the temple, goes away, and hangs himself.

Judas's story is a study in remorse that is not repentance. He is genuinely sorry; he feels the horror of what he has done, confesses openly that he has betrayed innocent blood, and even tries to undo it by returning the money. This is real remorse, real anguish over sin. And yet it does not save him, because it turns inward, to despair, rather than toward the mercy of the one he betrayed. Judas is sorry, but he does not go to Jesus for forgiveness; he goes to the priests, and then to the rope. The contrast with Peter is the whole point. Both men betrayed Jesus that night, both were shattered by it, both wept bitterly. But Peter's sorrow drove him back to Jesus and to restoration, while Judas's sorrow drove him to a tree and a noose. The difference was not the depth of the remorse but its direction, whether it turned toward the mercy of Christ or collapsed into despair. There is a warning in that for everyone who has sinned grievously. Feeling terrible about sin is not the same as repentance; remorse that turns only inward, to self-punishment and despair, is a dead end. The sorrow that saves is the one that carries us, however ashamed, back to the mercy of the one we wronged.

When I am crushed by my own sin, does my sorrow turn me toward the mercy of Christ, like Peter, or collapse inward into despair, like Judas, and do I know the difference between remorse and repentance?